Baccala Salad

Ingredients

1 lb. salt cod, soaked overnight or more, then drained
2 cloves garlic, chopped
4 Tbsp Olive OIl
1 Lemon Juice
1/2 cup whole cured black olives
1 celery stalk, diced
1-2 vinegar peppers, diced
1/2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Directions

Place pre-soaked salt cod fish in a medium saucepan. Add water to cover cod fish. Bring the water to a boil and simmer until the fish flakes easily. Remove the cod and drain.
In a bowl mix the garlic, olives, celery, vinegar peppers with black pepper, red pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil.
Break the cod into pieces and toss with the garlic-olive mixture.
Refrigerate and let sit for at least one half hour before serving.

Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes

Yield: 6-8 servings

Categories: Heirloom Recipes, Special Diets

Tags: baccala salad, salt cod, italian christmas eve tradtion, heirloom china

The Story

My memories of my grandfather’s guttural pronunciation of BACCALA still resonates in my head and makes me giggle. As a kid, who would think of eating something that sounded awful and started out as a hard piece of smelly fish. I watched in amusement as all the adults slurped up the baccala salad with a hard piece of crusty Italian bread, relishing eat bite. And I thought, “How could they?” Enter adulthood, and I now know why. It’s delicious; it’s a tradition; it’s a memory; it’s love.

Recipe by Carole Murko

Make the salad at least 24 hours before you serve it as it allows the flavors time to meld. I used the pickled jalapenos that I canned this fall instead of the vinegar peppers and I garnished with some red pepper strips for a lovely presentation.