Each time I am going again house to Puerto Rico to go to household, after touchdown on the airport I take a fast drive to Playa Aviones. Right here my very first cease is all the time to the kioskos (meals stands) that line the streets. The scent of the seaside breeze hits me after I stroll as much as the stands, as I see cooks dropping ladles of a seasoned fish-studded batter into enormous pots of effervescent oil that sit over open flames. The cooks use tongs to shortly seize the bacalaitos—fried salt cod fritters—out of the pots and pierce them with skewers. The fritters are briefly pierced and held on skewers or rods to let the surplus oil drip off earlier than being served piping sizzling.

Relying on the stand you go to, the scale of those salt cod fritters will fluctuate: Some are thick and fluffy, whereas others are so skinny and crispy they’re nearly see-through. Some are sufficiently small to be served by the handful on paper napkins, whereas others are so giant they’re nearly the scale of your head. I all the time order two small ones with an ice-cold native beer to scrub them down.

Rising up, I ate fish each Friday and bacalao—dried salted cod—was an accessible and reasonably priced protein that was simple to stretch into quite a lot of meals. The fish had a everlasting place in my household’s fridge. We’d serve it as a stew with boiled root greens, or mix it with rice for a one-pot meal, however my favourite method my household ready it was folded right into a batter and fried into bacalaitos that have been crisp and golden on the skin and plush and pillowy on the within. A bacalaito is the right palm-size snack, and these fritters are savory and salty sufficient that you simply gained’t want a dipping sauce or any sort of garnish. 

They’re additionally the nostalgic snack I really like making for mates, particularly after I need to introduce them to Puerto Rican delicacies. The recipe I am sharing right here is impressed by the bacalaitos I grew up consuming at house, however with just a few of my very own methods launched to streamline the recipe: I exploit a fast boil to melt and take away extra salt from the cod (as an alternative of a extra conventional chilly water in a single day soak) and I shallow-fry the fritters as an alternative of deep frying them in a big vat of oil, which minimizes the mess. And whereas these dried salt cod fritters take a while to organize, they depend on only a few pantry staples to make and, as soon as formed, fry up in only a few minutes.

Salted Cod’s Recognition in Puerto Rico

Bacalaitos are one of many many frituras (fried meals) generally served as snacks and appetizers in Puerto Rico, particularly throughout festivals and spiritual holidays. Frituras are sometimes served solo to snack on earlier than a giant meal and likewise make for an incredible chew on the go, particularly on the beachside kiosks that line the island shores.

Dried and salted fish (together with cod, pollock, mackerel, and sardines) discovered its method all through the Caribbean foodways by way of colonization by Spain. And regardless that Puerto Rico has an abundance of native seafood, storing and preserving fattier fish that was caught contemporary domestically didn’t work effectively because of the warmth and humidity of the tropical local weather. This resulted in dried and salted fish being imported by the Spanish from the Northern colder waters of the Atlantic through the sixteenth century. 

On the island, the big communities of Spanish Catholics—a lot of whom eschewed meat throughout Lent and on Fridays all year long—popularized salted fish dishes with influences from different European international locations, together with Portugal and France. In response to Consuming Puerto Rico: A Historical past of Meals, Tradition, and Id by Cruz Miguel Ortíz Cuadra, “what had began as an affordable fish that will fulfill the necessities of Lent and complement the diets of troopers and plantation slaves ended as probably the most logical dietary staple for a whole lot of islanders, each wealthy and poor.”

Prepping the Salt Cod

Salt cod is, as you may think, extremely salty. Step one is to soak the dried fish sufficient to leach out extra salt so the fish is edible. That is the one nice inconvenience of salt cod. When you can soak the fish in chilly or room temperature water over the course of a number of hours with a number of water adjustments to leach out the surplus salt, I discover comparable outcomes will be achieved by simmering the fish with loads of water till it’s simply salty sufficient to eat and softened sufficient to flake into items to kind the fritters. This usually takes solely about 15 to twenty minutes, which suggests you don’t have to organize your fish a full day prematurely, however as an alternative can put together the cod and cook dinner the fritters all on the identical day.

The saltiness of the salt cod varies with every fish, so whenever you’re boiling the fish to take away extra salt, you will have to style and alter the simmering time each time you make them. If it tastes effectively seasoned, then if it’s able to flake and use, but when it makes your lips purse, you will want to exchange the salty water with contemporary water and repeat the simmering course of. With my most popular model of salted fish (Panamei Salted Pollock), I usually want to alter the water as soon as. As a facet word, whereas some folks soak dried cod in milk as an alternative of water, I don’t discover a main taste distinction between that and water—and water is free, whereas milk is just not.

Frying the Fritters

Shallow-fried till the perimeters are crisp and the facilities are pleasantly chewy, these snacks are served piping sizzling, although they’re additionally fantastic served at room temperature when correctly ready. The important thing to attaining their signature golden-brown exterior and chewy inside is to make sure that the oil within the pan is shallow (solely about an inch deep) and sizzling sufficient that the fritters cook dinner shortly.

Needless to say salted cod fish goes to have your own home smelling fishy, so should you aren’t an enormous fan of that, I’d recommend opening a window or two whereas boiling the fish. Moreover you’ll be able to simmer a small pot of potpourri water or perhaps a pot of vinegar on the range to fight the scent. My mother all the time had somewhat simmer pot going whereas making bacalaitos and I’ve saved up the follow myself.

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