Cod steak pan-fried on the skin
A few years ago, when our chef friends were overflowing with lyricism, bombastic dish titles blossomed on the menus: there was the fashion for the unilateral, then the equilateral, and I even remember a salmon in the isosceles of the sea.
The cod, for its part, will simply be pan-fried on the skin.
The history of cod fishing goes back to François Ist, who launched the first fishing fleet in 1548. These schooners took on board Basque sailors hardened to bad weather, and lines of more than 1,500 hooks were cast into the storm.
It was only later that the first trawlers developed Newfoundland fishing on an industrial scale. The fish was processed on board these factory ships: assembly-line work in the freezing cold, gutter, header, slicer, then washing and off into the hold, laid flat skin-side down on a bed of salt. Then your fresh cod becomes salt cod. So much for history!
It was in 1953 that the committee for the promotion of cod consumption issued a booklet with 70 cod recipes, from cod bénédictine to cod Jacques Cartier and the famous brandade made with one kilo of cod and 500 grams of potatoes. Times change.
My recipe
Desalt the steaks, skin side up, in water that you will change three or four times. Cook them in water that is just barely simmering. Careful: the water must not boil (10 min). The flakes of cod should be pearly. Keep the cooking water to boil two potatoes, which we will mash to make a soup to serve as a starter.
Oil in the pan, a little butter just before laying in your steaks, this time on the skin, to make it crisp for 7 min. Turn off the heat, cover, and let it finish cooking quietly. Slice a clove of garlic and brown it in olive oil. It looks lovely and smells good! Place on the plate skin side down, pour over the garlic and a little oil on this cod, which regains its letters of nobility and at last becomes aristocratic. Serve hot, with, why not, Tarbais beans as a garnish.
Cod is becoming rarer and rarer, like many fish. Intensive fishing and pollution are emptying our oceans. So let’s savour it!
