Once soaked the salt fish should be refrigerated.

This is another one of those updates that I feel a little guilty about.  There’s no involved process or unusual ingredients, this is simply the age old technique of preserving fish for use later.  It’s pretty straightforward:  You pack salt around the fish until all the moisture inside is removed, and then hang the fish in a cool spot until it’s firm and dry.  After that the bacteria inside the fish can’t work their mojo to spoil it, and the preservation method can keep the meat usable for up to a year if you keep it in a cool dry place.

The recipe asks for a whole cod to salt.  I don’t consider myself a Texas apologist in any shape or form, but I’d have to suffer from some kind of super-powered delusional mindset if I were to tell you anything other than the fact that a fresh, diverse seafood selection just isn’t a possibility here in the middle of Texas.  The best I could do was visiting Quality Seafood, a highly recommended fish monger that’s fairly close by.  They had some very pretty cod fillets which fit the bill perfectly.  I picked up two fillets and cut them in half so they could fit into a plastic container…

… like so.  Salt was sprinkled into the plastic tub and then the cod was laid on top of it.  Next I poured more salt over the fillets until every inch was sufficiently covered.

The container was placed in the fridge for the next ten days, with me adding more salt every day and removing any excess liquid that had collected.  Fairly simple stuff, right?  Well, the next step ended up making me pause.  Mr. Henderson instructs that the salted fish needs to be air dried in a cool, dry place.  Damn.  Again, I’m in Texas.  The first day I needed to start drying the fish it was freaking 97 degrees Fahrenheit outside!  That is not cool by any stretch of the imagination, so I came up with the brilliant idea that I could dry the fish in the refrigerator uncovered.

WRONG. NO. DO NOT PASS GO. DO NOT COLLECT $200.

Oh man, what a terrible idea.  I’ll cut the story short, but if you don’t like the idea of cod flavored ice, DON’T AIR DRY FISH IN YOUR FRIDGE.

I decided instead to wrap each fillet with multiple paper towels and stuff them into a Ziploc bag. Then I’d place multiple heavy books on top of the bag.  Every day I removed the damp paper towels and replaced them with dry fresh ones.  After a few weeks the paper towels stopped absorbing moisture, and the fillets were dry and firm.

And here are the fillets in all their glory.  I’ve not had a chance to make anything with them yet, so I can’t comment on their taste.  I can tell you that they smell very, very fishy.

Just like my ice.

One down, seventy six to go.

Update: Reader Christopher posted a salt cod recipe in the comments, and it looks so good I just had to add it here.

‘Baccala’ (Salt Cod)

Cut a salt cod fillet into pieces ~3″ long.  Soak the salt cod in water for 2-3 days changing water twice per day.
Pat the fish dry, dip in egg, dredge in flour, and then fry until golden.  Slice 2 medium onions and 2 red peppers into strips and lightly fry to soften, not color.

In an oven safe container combine fried fish, onions, peppers, lots of course ground black pepper, dozen-ish calabrese olives, oregano, chunky cooked tomatoes, olive oil and bake at 350 for roughly 30 minutes.

It’s one of my favorite dishes and really needs salt cod to have the right texture.

Thanks Christopher!