Recipe: Baccalà alla Vicentina

Method

Before cooking, you must first buy. And it is good to know that the cod, the one that the Vicentini intend, honor and taste, is the stockfish. The raw material is always the same, the cod – gadus morhua -, characterized by a white meat and a very delicate taste, but the method of conservation is different: the cod is preserved in salt, the dried cod is dried. The baccalà alla vicentina, therefore, is not cod but stoccafisso: a desired terminological difference that sinks – it seems – its roots in phonetic reasons, more similar to the Venetian dialect. And now let’s move on to the actual preparation of this typical dish: dip the cod in a container and in cold water for two or three days, changing the water as much as possible, on average every four hours of daytime. Remove the skin, open the fish for the long side, remove the bone and all the spines, cut it into square pieces and possibly the same. Separately slice the onions and brown them in a pan with a glass of oil, adding the sardines to sauté after desalting, boning and chopped. Add the chopped parsley with the fire off. Now flour the pieces of dried cod, sprinkle with the prepared mixture, then arrange them, one next to the other, in a pan of cooked – or aluminum – or even in a pan, making sure that before putting the fish there is on the bottom a few tablespoons of sautéed. Use the rest of the sauce to cover the fish and add the milk, parmesan, salt and pepper. Add the oil to cover all the pieces, leveling them. Cook it all at a very slow heat for about four and a half hours, making sure to use the right method, which in the Vicenza dialect is called “pipare”, that is to move the container from time to time without mixing. The “bacalà alla vicentina” is delicious hot with polenta but is also excellent at a distance of a dozen – maximum fourteen – hours.