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Salted Codfish Hash
Prepare as for Fish Balls, omitting egg. Try out fat salt pork, remove scraps, leaving enough fat in pan to moisten fish and potatoes. Put in fish and potatoes, stir until heated, then cook until well browned underneath; fold, and turn like an omelet.
A two-line recipe that assumes you have already read Fish Balls a page earlier. The hinge is the ratio: roughly one part shredded salt cod to two and a half parts potato, boiled together and mashed, with no egg here so the hash stays loose enough to brown rather than set into a cake.
- What "prepare as for Fish Balls" meansThe companion recipe is not reproduced here, but it works from roughly 1 cup of salt codfish picked into small shreds boiled with about 2 1/2 cups of raw potato cut in thick pieces until the potato is soft, then drained and mashed together and seasoned with pepper (the fish-ball version also takes a little butter). The egg is skipped, as directed.
- Modern salt cod needs soakingBoxed shredded codfish of the period was sold ready to use and generally needed less desalting than a whole cured plank. Whole dried salt cod sold today is very hard and very salty; soak it 12-24 hours in several changes of cold water in the refrigerator before it goes near the pot, or the hash will be inedible.
- SaltDo not salt the potatoes or the pan. Between the cod and the salt pork there is more than enough. Taste before it goes into the skillet, since after browning you cannot fix it.
- "Try out fat salt pork"Dice 2-3 ounces of fat salt pork small and render it slowly over medium-low heat until the cubes are crisp and golden, then lift them out. You want about 2 tablespoons of fat left in the pan. Unsmoked bacon or blanched pancetta is the nearest substitute; the crisp scraps are worth keeping to scatter over the top.
- The panCast iron or a heavy skillet, 9-10 inches, over medium heat. Spread the hash in an even layer, press it down once, and then leave it alone for 8-12 minutes so a crust forms. Stirring after the first heating-through is what prevents browning.
- Folding itLoosen the whole sheet with a wide spatula before attempting the fold, and fold toward you in one motion as with an omelet. Without egg the mixture is fragile, so a fold that half-collapses is normal and does no harm to the eating.
- YieldAs written this serves two generously or three modestly, as a breakfast or supper dish. Poached eggs, pickled beets or a vinegar-forward chow chow all suit it, though the recipe names no accompaniment.
Salt cod hash belongs to the New England economy of dried fish, where cured cod was a staple of both export and home tables, and where a barrel of salt pork was a mainstay of savory cooking. Fannie Farmer files it among the fish chapter's variations on one basic mixture -- fish balls, fish hash, creamed codfish -- all built from the same boiled cod and potato, which is exactly how a household with a Monday dinner's leftovers would have used it. The egg is omitted here because nothing needs to hold together: the potato starch and the browned crust do that work, and the fold at the end is borrowed from the omelet purely for presentation. Shredded salt codfish in wooden boxes was a standard grocery item well into the twentieth century.