A Lisbon native on her favorite way to eat Portugal’s sanctified salt cod.
In a country where the humble salt cod is almost sanctified, and where they say there are at least 365 different ways to cook it, my favorite dish—as a lisboeta—is one that is claimed to have been invented in my home city. I just can’t help myself: when I see bacalhau à Brás on a menu I find it hard not to order it. It’s a complicated name—it is pronounced baka-low, to rhyme with wow, with the lh sound similar to the gl in Italian—for what is, in essence, quite a simple preparation using straightforward ingredients.
The salt cod is rehydrated until it is rendered juicy again, and the flakes of fish are separated and mixed together with crispy shoestring fries and lightly scrambled eggs. It’s a common staple in tascas—those humble little restaurants found across Portugal, that are often mom-and-pop affairs—as well as in some of the most high-end restaurants.
Bacalhau à Brás can take salt cod to another level or easily downgrade it to a salty and disappointing mash. I’ve seen outlandish versions created by some of the country’s top chefs, but I’m a puritan about it: it’s the simplicity of flavors that take me back to childhood that I crave, not a wobbling tower created from twirls of potatoes held together with fish and eggs. As a newspaper journalist, working long shifts, this was the meal that would fortify me and keep me going as the old daily print deadline began to loom.
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