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Baked Codfish, Newfoundland
Procure a three-pound piece fresh codfish, thoroughly bone, then place in a baking dish with two tablespoons each Worcestershire sauce and tomato catsup, a teaspoon each anchovy butter and salt, three saltspoons pepper and juice of half a sound lemon. Repeatedly turn fish in seasoning, then let infuse for an hour, rubbing fish with seasoning once in a while. Sprinkle over three tablespoons fresh bread crumbs, arrange a few bits of butter on top and set in oven for forty-five minutes, basting it once in a while with its own gravy, remove and send to table in same dish.
A plainly seasoned baked cod that reads like an English fish supper with a Newfoundland label. The original gives no oven temperature and a cooking time that will destroy the fish, so both need adjusting.
- The hinge: 45 minutes is far too longA three-pound cod loin or thick fillet piece is done when the flesh flakes and reaches 130-135F at the centre; at 375F that is roughly 20-25 minutes, and a whole thick centre-cut piece perhaps 30. Cod held for three-quarters of an hour turns dry and cottony no matter how often you baste.
- Oven temperatureNone is given. Bake at 375F, which browns the crumbs without driving the moisture out of the fish.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so three saltspoons of pepper is about three-quarters of a teaspoon — assertive but not a misprint.
- Anchovy butterRarely sold now. Mash a teaspoon of soft butter with a scrap of mashed anchovy fillet or a pinch of anchovy paste, which is about what the recipe's single teaspoon amounts to; the point is the salt-and-umami backbone, not the fat.
- The hour of marinatingLemon juice and Worcestershire will begin to firm and opaque the surface of the fish. An hour is the upper limit; thirty minutes is plenty, and keep it refrigerated rather than on the counter.
- "Its own gravy"A lean fish in a dry dish gives up very little liquid. Add a few tablespoons of water, fish stock or dry white wine to the dish before baking so there is something to baste with and the seasonings do not scorch.
- BoningBuy a centre-cut loin or a thick fillet piece already pin-boned rather than boning a whole cod at home; run a finger along the flesh and pull any remaining pin bones with tweezers.
- YieldThree pounds of cod serves four to six as a main course. It is meant to go to the table in the baking dish, so choose one you are willing to be seen with.
Salt cod built Newfoundland's economy for centuries, and the fishery drew Basque, Portuguese, French and West Country English boats to the Grand Banks long before permanent settlement. What is striking about this recipe is that it calls for fresh cod: the export catch had been entirely split, salted and dried, while the fresh article was the local, everyday portion. The seasoning, though, is thoroughly English: Worcestershire, tomato catsup, anchovy butter and lemon are the standard bottled flavourings of a late-Victorian larder, and the same combination would have been rubbed on a chop or stirred into a fish sauce in London or Boston.