Bacalao con Samfaina

Bacallà amb samfaina is Catalan: thick pieces of salt cod set into a slow vegetable sauce of aubergine, courgette, peppers and tomato. It isn't cod covered with a quick tomato sauce. The vegetables must keep their character while cooking down together, sweet, soft and glossy, until the samfaina can hold the fish rather than run around it. This is food for the family table and for the abstinence days of Lent, substantial without needing meat.

The method that decides it is simple. Cook the vegetables before the cod, and give them longer than looks necessary. Onion and peppers soften first, then aubergine and courgette, and only then does the tomato go in. Keep the heat low until the water has cooked away and the oil begins to show at the edges. That slow cooking is where the sweetness comes from. Rush it, and you have wet vegetables under good fish, which is a poor bargain.

Far from Catalonia, frozen desalted salt cod portions are a sensible choice and need only thawing and careful drying. If salted pollock is all you can find, use it, but expect leaner flesh and a stronger cured taste. My Margin beside this recipe says, "verdura primero, bacalao al final," vegetables first, cod at the end. Follow that and don't overcook the fish. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.