Bacalhau à USA

Olá queridos!

It has been a long time since we last met. So very much to tell you...

Bacalhau Boy and I and our 10-month old baby boy and two cats moved to the US in the beginning of December. I started a demanding dream job with a full-on hour commute each way the same week the baby boy turned 1 year old. I had to re-take my driving license road test and pushed through some trauma there, having flashbacks to my 16-year old self. Bacalhau Boy built 15 pieces of IKEA furniture over the course of 2 weeks. And I see my parents every day for the first time in two decades, because they live next door and are taking wonderful care of our munchkin baby while BB and I work.

Annnnnnd, there may be a nervous breakdown or two scattered in there somewhere. And about 20 pounds from stress eating. No biggie.

And we had a Portuguese day! Bacalhau Assado, roast potatoes, boiled eggs, queijo da Serra, olives, and Portuguese wine. Keeping it real, right here in the suburbs of America.

I may not have a new recipe for you, and I may not have much homemade fodder for posts, but I have one picture which proves something very important.

You can take the Bacalhau Boys out of Portugal.

But you can't take the bacalhau out of the boys.

I vow to continue my recipe collecting, for their sake. See you back on the blog soon!

Bacalhau à Vasca

Warm spring weather gives me an itch to eat the beautiful green veggies showing up at the market. It is a temporary but powerful urge, driven by both the beautiful look of the produce and the knowledge that I will have to wear fewer layers of clothing very soon. A great opportunity to make a greens-filled, springlike bacalhau recipe to welcome the new season, wouldn't you think?

Yes and no. The typical bacalhau dish in Portugal only has one green component: parsley on top. The rest of the dish is nearly always beige: onion, garlic, olive oil, and potato. Sure there are green olives sometimes, spinach or a green pepper here or there. But on the whole, bacalhau recipes suffer from a lack of color.

So just imagine my excitement when I came across this recipe for Bacalhau à Vasca. Asparagus and peas and bacalhau? It may as well be called Bacalhau á Springtime!

Bolinhos de Bacalhau

Whenever Portuguese family and friends are gathered together, little fried balls of bacalhau and potato-- bolinhos de bacalhau-- are likely to show up on a table nearby. They are a type of snack called salgados, a subset of petiscos that describes a variety of similar fried savory bites.

I have attempted bolinhos de bacalhau once before, the night I did petiscos.  Those are not featured on the petisco blog post because they were horrid, bland, lead balloons. Bacalhau fail. But not being one to give up easily, one rainy Saturday I decided to try again. I threw myself into the task of making these light on the inside, crispy on the outside bacalhau and potato fritters.

Bacalhau success!

The High Price of Good Bacalhau

Lily the kitty loves bacalhau, too. (Or is that fear in her eyes?)

It may seem strange for a blog called The Bacalhau Chronicles not to feature bacalhau in every post. After all, if my goal is to cook 365 different bacalhau recipes, why do I only cook it once or twice a month?

Erm... good question. There are two solid answers to this one.

1. I am growing to like bacalhau more and more. It is a learning project for my tastebuds which I am embracing and appreciating. But I am not ready to eat bacalhau every day, not even in the name of blog science.

2. It is very expensive stuff.

Bacalhau com Grão

Hello? Remember me? Bacalhau blogger who went missing for a few months? I feel horrible about my long absence, but I have an excuse for at least four months of it. Morning sickness.

That's right, a Bacalhau Baby is on the way, and for quite a long while the little munchkin made it impossible for me to eat anything normal. Cooking? What's that? Bacalhau Boy ate a lot of frozen meals and a lot of pizza while I tried to keep nausea at bay with plain pasta, bread, and any fizzy drink I could stomach. Good times!

Thankfully, that has passed and I am feeling great. In fact, I am getting good and pudgy and ready to make up for lost time by cooking and eating as many good things as possible.

Included on that list of good things: a delicious meal of Bacalhau com Grão, or saltcod with chickpeas.

Bacalhau com Molho de Coentros

The nickname for this bacalhau, I have just decided, is "Undercover Bacalhau."

Bacalhau Fishcakes with Spanish Rice

This week's bacalhau dish is a riff on a Portuguese classic, Bacalhau Fritters and Tomato Rice (Pataniscas de Bacalhau com Arroz de Tomate).  It is a tasty dish, to be sure.  But deep frying?  I think we all learned our lesson on that one this week.  No one escapes the revenge of the deep fried cheesecake. 

So in case deep fried cod poses the same risks, here is a patanisca made a bit lighter.  Instead of tomato rice, here is a Spanish rice that packs in more veggies than the original.  Is it super healthy?  Errrr, not exactly.  But it is genuinely delicious and not as unhealthy as it could be.

Success!

My Portuguese Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is a big deal in Portugal.  It is the day when the presents are opened, it is the night of the traditional meal of bacalhau, and it is the day when the family gathers together for the holiday.  So I was not too surprised when we arrived at Bacalhau Boy's sister's home for the Ceia de Natal and we were greeted by this huge sideboard of goodies:

Bacalhau Assado no Forno

If Bacalhau à Brás is the dish I hear most foreigners call their favorite, then Bacalhau Assado has to be-- hands down-- the one I hear most Portuguese call their favorite.

It shouldn't be terribly surprising, really.  Of all the simple ways to prepare bacalhau, this is one of the simplest. And in a culture where quality ingredients are prized above fancy culinary techniques, how could you help but love a no-fuss dish which showcases the taste of bacalhau at its best?

Bacalhau com Amêijoas

I feel like I should apologize.  I have nothing much to say about this cod and clam and crunchy potato dish.

Not that it wasn't great!  It really was.  But right now, all I can think about is packing for my annual trip to visit with my family in the US.

Have I gotten presents for everyone?  
What will the range of weather be-- jacket, or just sweater weather?
What if I save space by leaving all my toiletries here and stopping at Target to pick up necessities right after arriving?  
All the sightseeing-- have I gotten tickets for the high-demand museums yet?  OH!  That reminds me... walking shoes...

But in fact this dish WAS good and I have the picture to prove it.  I really want to share.  So here is the most important info, via a brief packing parable:

Louisiana Bacalhau Cakes with Corn Relish

If there were a book about my eating life in Portugal, the first chapter would undoubtedly be called, "Jen versus Fish Bones."  

In the US, I had only ever eaten fresh fish in fillets.  They were every bit as fresh as the fish I get here, but they were prepared.  As in, let the fishmonger do his job and make the fishes all pretty and easy to cook at home.  As in, let the restaurant fillet your fish so that they do not risk provoking a lawsuit when you swallow a rogue bone.  As in, why let the fish stare at you with that fishy head and eyes if you don't have to?

I have since made peace with the espinas of the peixes here in Lisbon, and can now eat a grilled whole fish more or less neatly in a restaurant setting.  Because BB is a huge fan of grilled whole sea bream I cook that for him whenever I am feeling particularly sweet.  But at my core, I am always more comfortable when I can enjoy a fish dish without picking through bones.

In other words: it is not accidental that these Louisiana Bacalhau Cakes are the second fish patty recipe I have posted.

Bacalhau Bread Stuffing

It's not pretty, folks.  But like Mama always says, it's what on the inside that counts.

Petiscos of Portugal

I am a fan of tapas.  A huge variety of bite-sized morsels that makes a meal out of appetizers?  Sign me up.

Nowadays, though, I live in Portugal.  A place where tapas is a word used by the country who historically plays Marsha to Portugal's Jan: a country also known as Spain.

So we don't eat tapas in our house.  We detest tapas.  We avoid tapas and their shiny perfect hair and adorable miniskirts and effortless popularity with guys named Doug and Charlie. Tapas, tapas, TAPAS!

Instead, we choose to eat petiscos.

Bacalhau com Natas

If you are reluctant to eat bacalhau because it is fish, and fish is "too healthy and bland"...

If you have ever had a crush on someone who wasn't very good for you...

If you have a cholesterol level under 200 or an overactive metabolism you would like to cure in one night...

THIS is your bacalhau.

Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá

Portuguese classics will almost always include six or more of the following ingredients:

1. Bacalhau
2. Onions
3. Garlic
4. Potatoes
5. Eggs
6. Olives
7. Parsley and/or fresh cilantro
8. Lots of olive oil

With these pantry staples, one could create a week's worth of meals, each one different than the last, but each one the same.  It is thrifty and mind boggling-- and something I never much noticed before I started documenting this journey into bacalhau.

I am mildly unsurprised, then, to present a dish which embodies ALL of these ingredients: Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá.

Bacalhau Burgers

After a week of boring meals (hello again, roast chicken) and not-terribly-successful-meals (homemade empanadas, I am looking at you!) I am diving back into the pool of bacalhau experimentation.

The inspiration for Bacalhau Burgers came from King Arthur Flour's blog, which suggested this week that I master my recipe for homemade burger buns in anticipation of Memorial Day.  Great idea, KAF!  This is why you are a valued member of my email inbox.

Once I had it in my mind that I was going to make some tasty burger buns, I immediately thought of putting bacalhau inside of them.  I have made salmon burgers and tuna patties, and they are tasty enough.  But when a woman decides to make her very own burger buns, it requires a burger which is nothing short of WOW, you know?  I had to seek out something different, something with exclamation points.

Bacalhau com Capa de Broa

Things happen when you have parties.  You might attempt some brown sugar cupcakes with fig filling, and maybe they end up looking like the Bad News Bears of baked goods.  And maybe your honey marscapone frosting curdles and has to be binned.  You might even be up at 2 am on a Saturday night praying that your yellow layer cake doesn't go the way of the more ambitious cupcakes, while you watch Vampire Diary reruns to stay awake until the cake is cool enough to come out of the pans.

Or it might just happen that you decide to try out a new bacalhau recipe on your Portuguese in-laws for Mother's Day (May 1 here this year), and while you are up to your elbows in shreds of bacalhau and cornbread crumbs your in-laws show up an hour before you expect them.

Wine, anyone?

Bacalhau Fajitas

Fajitas are not Portuguese. Let's get that out there, right at the beginning.  Bacalhau Boy (the husband's new blog identity) had never eaten one before he met me.  And traditional fajita fillings?  Roasted red peppers, jalapenos, hot and spicy seared steak or chicken, guacamole, salsa, sour cream-- definitely delicious, but not in the least way Iberian.

But as much as I love those spicy flavors, my favorite part of fajitas is not their distinctive taste.  It is the genius of the soft tortilla as a food delivery system.  Think about it-- you pick and choose your fillings right at the table. You create a single serving, of-the-moment buffet in a soft floury shell.  And it is seriously fun to eat.   

So since it is a genius system that seems perfectly adaptable to other flavors, the only remaining question is:

If fajitas were Portuguese, what would they be filled with?

Bacalhau à Brás

When I first got to Lisbon, I had a hard time getting on the bacalhau love train.  Honestly, I felt convinced that though I might tolerate it someday, I would never love it.

That was before I tasted Bacalhau à Brás.

Bacalhau à Moliceiro

This is a dish in which bacalhau plays hide and seek.  A bit of masquerading, some clumsy sculpting, AND a story about a Portuguese sea town. This is 138% more fun than you expect from a piece of fish.

The story starts with the "à Moliceiro" part of this recipe.  A moliceiro is a kind of boat, iconic of the northern Portuguese town of Aveiro.  They have big colorful prows featuring humorous paintings of everyday scenes, and-- well, it's easier if you just have a look: