My Roasted Codfish with Homemade Olive Bread and Roasted Red Peppers Crust

The naturaly very layered Codfish and its Crust

As a Portuguese, I do love “Bacalhau” any style!

For a quick and very tasty meal, the Codfish (salted and dried), low in fat and rich in protein, is very convenient.  After being desalted, it can be kept in the freezer for several months, therefore, it´s always handy and ready for any dish that you may want to make.

Today, I came up with this creation for lunch. It was very tasty indeed and I´m sharing with you the way I prepared it.

A gorgeous (uncooked) piece of Salted and dried Codfish (desalted) - This one was so thick that I sliced it in half

My Roasted Codfish with Homemade Olive Bread and Roasted Peppers Crust

 

The roasting dish

Ingredients:                                                                                                

3 to 4              Pieces of Codfish (salted and dried), desalted
100ml             Olive oil
1                     Onion, Medium (sliced)
2                     Roasted red peppers
3                     Slices of Olive bread (or any other rustic bread)
1 TBS             Parsley, chopped (can be replaced by 1 tsp of dried parsley)

salt and pepper to taste

2                      Potatoes, peeled and thin sliced

Preparation:

1.       Bring a pan of water to a boil and cook the codfish for 3 minutes. Drain and reserve, once cold remove the bones keeping the flesh intact.

2.       Slice the onions into thin rings. Heat half the olive oil in a frying pan and cook the onion rings until soft. Once done remove and place in a baking tray preferably “Pyrex” or ceramic.

3.       Add the rest of the olive oil to the same frying pan where the onions were cooked (don´t wash it) and once hot, put the pieces of codfish and cook for a couple of minutes. Transfer the codfish to the baking tray placing the pieces over the onions. Season with salt and pepper. (Go very light on the salt)

4.       In a food processor, process the bread and roasted peppers until you get a coarse bread crumbs texture, stir in the parsley. Press the crumbled mixture on top of codfish.

5.       Using the olive oil that should remain in the frying pan (may use one more table spoon of olive oil if necessary), fry the very thin sliced potatoes for a couple of minutes on each side. Transfer them to the baking tray placing the potatoes around the codfish, season with salt and pepper.

6.       Bake in the pre-heated oven to 170ºC ~180ºC for 30 to 40 minutes. The potatoes should be soft and lightly golden.

7.       Serve in the baking dish or individually.

Individual Plating

Very big "Chips"