Plip Plop Cod

Or in Spanish, Bacalao pilpil. This is an onomatopaeic  dish, pilpil, being the Basque equivalent of plop plop.

In Spain, as in GB, we are all in lockdown. Some of us with doggies can still go for walks, while those of us with "gardens", ie untended wildernesses, can go out and enjoy a bit of fresh - and with every passing day fresher - air.

But we all need to feed the inner man (for the PC among you, read person, or human unit, just in case AI has caught up on us) and so today I raided the freezer and came up with ingredients for the famous Basque recipe mentioned above, Bacalao pilpil.

1) Thaw your frozen cod steaks, but keep the meltwater. If you have a huge slab of frozen cod, about four inches per person is sufficient. Many a lady friend has told me that, but I digress. Bring the cod pieces (no double entendre intended. As Kenneth Horne used to say about such things: if I see a double entendre, I whip it out immediately) up to room temperature. 

2) Peel and thinly slice about 2 cloves of garlic per human unit and fry slowly in Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) - the Hojiblanca variety is best - until golden, then remove the garlic and set aside. The oil should NEVER smoke. That spoils the oil and ruins the whole dish. 

3) Place skin up (the cod - this is not an imperative) and fry slowly until the cod begins to brown a bit. If you want to, now is indeed a good time to skin up or open a bottle of Cava (Juve & Camps, if you can get it) - I prefer the latter.  By now the cod will be sweating out lovely, coddy juices. Carfefully, very carefully turn the steaks over with a pair of spatulas and add in the meltwater and loads of chopped or dried parsley. continue to cook. If you're rich and faddy, you can brown the cod later with a fancy kitchen blowtorch. If not, heigh ho, it's just as good without browning. As well as the cod, you should now have a mixture of olive oil, parsley and a load of what looks like a lot of cream bobbling about the frying pan. when the cod is cooked through, remove it and using a fine mesh strainer as a whip, emulsify the liquid in the pan. Voilà you have your sauce.

4) I usually serve this on a bed of al dente spinach pasta nests with the fried garlic sprinkeld over the cod and, perhaps, another dash of EVOO. For the more adventurous, some chili flakes may be sprinkled over the cod fillet. 

A good bottle of Rioja white (the Cava is the cook's prerogative only), crusty bread, Manchega cheese and some good old English Apple Crumble for pudding will make the lockdown slightly more than bearable. For a couple of hours at least.