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Fish Fritters
Plunge a half pound shredded salt codfish in water for five minutes. Drain and totally squeeze out the water with the hands. Place it in a bowl, add three tablespoons flour, two fresh eggs, one tablespoon milk, a saltspoon cayenne pepper, half teaspoon each chopped parsley and baking powder; briskly mix with a wooden spoon for two minutes. Heat two tablespoons lard in a large frying pan, drop the fish preparation into the pan, in twelve even forms, and briskly fry for three minutes on each side. Remove with the cake turner, place on a hot dish with a little parsley greens and serve.
A plain salt cod fritter, closer to a pancake than a battered fritter. The one thing to fix is the soak.
- Five minutes is not enough soakingEven finely shredded salt cod needs far longer to lose its cure — an hour in several changes of cold water at minimum, and overnight in the refrigerator for thicker or heavily salted pieces. Taste a shred before you mix: if it makes you wince, keep soaking. Boneless salt cod sold in shredded or flaked form is the closest match to what the recipe assumes.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is usually reckoned about a quarter teaspoon, though some sources put it nearer an eighth. A quarter teaspoon of cayenne in half a pound of fish is assertive but not extreme; start with half that if you are unsure.
- No added salt, on purposeThe recipe never calls for salt because the fish supplies it. Do not season the mixture until you have tasted the soaked cod.
- Squeezing mattersWring the fish out hard in a clean towel. Wet cod makes a batter that slumps in the pan and steams rather than browns.
- The fatTwo tablespoons of lard in a large pan is a shallow film. Flatten each spoonful of the mixture to about half an inch so it cooks through in the time given; add more fat between batches, since the flour will drink it. Any neutral high-heat fat works if lard is inconvenient.
- Heat and timingMedium-high — three minutes a side gives a browned crust and a set centre on fritters of this thickness. If they are browning in under two minutes the pan is too hot and the interior will stay pasty.
- Cake turnerA thin metal spatula. Slide it fully under each fritter before turning; they are loose until the first side has set.
- YieldTwelve fritters, serving three or four as a light main course with lemon or a sharp sauce, or six as a first course.
Salt cod fritters are one of the few dishes that turn up in almost every cuisine touched by the Atlantic cod trade — Portuguese bolinhos de bacalhau, Spanish buñuelos de bacalao, Caribbean saltfish cakes, New England codfish balls. Dried, salted cod was for centuries a cheap keeping protein available inland and at sea, and cookbooks of the early twentieth century still treated it as a pantry staple rather than a specialty item; shredded salt cod was sold boxed and ready to soak in this period. The formula here is the frugal one: the fish is bound with a little flour and egg and fried in what amounts to drop-pancake fashion, without the mashed potato used in several of its national cousins.