Cod with cream or bacalhau with creams

How to make cod with cream . I love cod and I love Portuguese gastronomy. I am going to give you another spectacular fish recipe , the famous cod with cream or bacalhau with creams. 

The Portuguese are true artists when it comes to preparing cod. They were the ones who introduced the conservation technique of this fish during their time at sea. They open the freshly caught piece, and cover it with salt. On land, it will again be scraped and salted for sale. In addition, once desalted, it maintains all its properties and perfectly recovers its original texture.

A tip to know if the cod is in good condition: it should have a white or grayish color, if its tone is more similar to dark yellow, this could mean that it has been in the salting room for too long.

It is said that in Portugal they have 365 ways to cook cod, one for each day of the year. Today I am going to give you the cod with cream, which is very similar to spiritual cod . In fact, many cod recipes are prepared in a similar way in terms of the steps to follow: poach the fish, mince it and combine it with the recipe’s own ingredients, before proceeding with its baking or reheating.

You can buy the cod and desalinate it or, as I have done on this occasion, you can buy it desalted, so you save yourself from having to be aware of changing the water. As for the ingredients, it is very likely that you have them all in your house.

Potatoes, onion, garlic, cream, milk, flour and grated cheese make up the base of this recipe. A fado and the aroma of cod fresh from the oven, and I can already imagine walking through the Algarve … a recipe that you will love!

Preparation of cod and its accompaniment

1. We bring water to a boil with a bay leaf and, when it is boiling, add the desalted cod loins . We turn off the fire and let it cool down in the water. When the water is warm, we remove the cod loins, remove the skin and crumble it. We reserve.
2. Strain and cut the potatoes into straw potatoes. We fry them with plenty of oil. That they are not very hard, rather soft. We transfer them to a plate with kitchen paper to drain the oil and reserve.
3. Cut the onion into a very thin julienne. We cut the garlic cloves into sheets.
4. Strain the oil used to fry the potatoes and use a little (until covering the bottom of the pan) to fry the onion and garlic. We will cook it until the onion is transparent. We reserve.

Preparation of the béchamel

1. For the béchamel sauce : we will put the flour, butter and oil in a frying pan and we will keep stirring so that there are no lumps.
2. Little by little we will be incorporating the milk, and we will be stirring. Next we will slowly add the cream, without stopping stirring.
3. Finally we add salt, ground black pepper and nutmeg (the amount will depend on your taste) It should not be too thick. If it is still not clear to you, I encourage you to watch the video you have below. It will be perfect for you.

Baking and final presentation of cod with cream

1. Mix the cod, the potatoes and the garlic and onion sauce in a deep and large bowl.
2. We preheat the oven to gratinate at 180 ° C. Incorporate the previous mixture into the pan (removed from the stove) where we have prepared the besamel and mix. We pass it to a source that we can put in the oven, and sprinkle the grated cheese to gratin.
3. We put it in the oven for about 15 minutes or until the cheese is gratin or golden.

You can present it plated individually, on some grilled wild asparagus or, as a canapé, inside a mini   volcano of puff pastry decorated with raisins. It will make you look like true professionals in the kitchen!

Be sure to enjoy all the recipes for fish and seafood that we have on the blog. I assure you that you will find a lot of ideas to make yours much happier.