Ciao tutti, recently I made Salt Cod Agnolotti—which is totally delicious and a nice way of eating fish with pasta, that is a bit more wintery and filling.
Salt cod, also known as baccalà in Italy, has a long history that dates back over 1,000 years. Its origins trace to the Vikings, who were among the first to preserve cod by drying it in the cold winds of the North Atlantic. Cod is caught, salted, and shipped all over the world, including to my mother-in-law's company Ghezzi Alimentari, where they sell it to all the top restaurants and food merchants in Italy. If I am lucky enough to get my hands on some of this prize ingredient, this is what I do with it.
Don't forget you have to start 24hours before you make the pasta, as salt cod needs a soak, and like me after a broken night's sleep, it is verrrrry salty.
Salt cod filling
- 200g salt cod
- 300ml milk
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp flour
Soak the salt cod in fresh cold water, and leave overnight. Change the water at least 4 times.
In a small pan cover the cod with milk and add a bay leaf and any other aromatics, rosemary, thyme, black pepper etc. Gently bring up to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes, until the salt cod is flaking and soft.
Gently lift the fish out of the milk, peel off the skin, check for any bones and place in a bowl.
Make a thick roux with the flour and butter, then loosen with a little of the milk that cooked the fish.
Use this bechamel to bind the cod together to make the agnolotti filling, you might not need all of the bechamel, so don’t over do it. Aim for a thick consistency like mashed potato.
Mix well to break up the fish, some recipes blend the mixture at the point but I quite like to keep the texture of the fish, but it still needs to be smooth, so its up to you.
Pasta Dough
- 180g '00' flour (a fine ground speciality flour for pasta)
- 120g semola (a harder flour, with a sharper texture)
- 2 whole eggs
- 2 egg yolks
- In a bowl, or better yet, straight on a wooden kitchen counter like a true pastaficio pro, mix the eggs into the flour. Depending on the flour, the eggs, the weather, and maybe even Mercury’s position in retrograde, you might need more or less egg.
- You want a dough that’s firm, but not so sticky it feels tacky. Keep kneading and you'll find it gets this amazing silky feeling, then you know you're onto a good thing.
- After a good 5 minutes kneading, leave to rest on the work top under an upturned bowl. Some recipes tell you to wrap it in clingfilm but I find it sweats, and also why use the plastic.
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