Ooooo! Those sound very promising!
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I poached salt cod in water and in olive oil today.
I got several packages of this brand during my last trip to Atlanta for Thanksgiving.
It says it’s from Portugal, so that’s promising!
Soaked about 48 hours with 2 or 3 water changes. Both poached with a bit of thyme, carrot, celery, onion, bay leaf, pepercorn, garlic, parley, and orange peel. The olive oil version was salty but I liked it better.
I will probably use the water poached for “fried” or fritters. I want to do the olive oil one differently. Maybe something with a tomato sauce, maybe romesco.
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Making what I will call Carribean cod fish cakes ( salt fish fritters according to husband from Jamaica).
These have no potato, and varying proportions of flour, egg, and cod.
This story seems closest to mine, but I recently saw a recipe that included plantain that could be interesting.
I’m leaning toward 1 lb salt cod (before soaking), 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup corn meal ( I have not seen this in a recipe, but I like the texture). Struggling with the egg, which seem to range from one to three for a cup of flour, but I like less, maybe one or two for the proportions I’m leaning toward, and wonder about what more egg yolk, or more egg white might be like.
Some include milk!
Then the baking powder. The baking powder seems to range from 1 tsp to 2 Tbs for about 1 cup of flour! Most are a tsp to a cup of flour, so probably closer to that.
(HO says ive already shared that one)
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This one uses baking powder AND yeast, and no egg. I don’t remember egg in my Aunt Helen’s*, but I don’t remember yeast either. Not thaf she would have told me.
I am remembering rounded ones with rough, crunchy edges.
*AKA “whip it”. She used to say “I’ll rip your leg off and whip you with the wet end!”
Another variation; yeast! This could be it! Thesalt fish cakes I grew up with!
Cudos from both Trinbagonians AND Jamaicans!
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Put them on some Pikliz.
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MIL says I “cooked up” salt fish, rather than fried. 
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These fritters which contain no flour and eggs beaten until ribbon stage look amazing.
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And an immersion Spanish lesson! Perfect. But not my Aunt Helen’s codfish cakes 
. AFIR, no potato. They look good though! It’s usually a Trini or Bajan version that comes closest. Curious about the potato.
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I have a Brazilian friend, shrinkrap, who made Bacalao for a dinner party I was invited to. It is salted cod, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, soft boiled eggs, garlic, etc… all layered and baked to perfection.
But she was rushed in her preparation and did not soak the salt cod enough.
Oh my goodness, was it a salty meal! So we drank more wine.
I have prepared her recipe a time or two myself and I almost want to leave out the salty olives because even if you soak the salted cod over night and drain the water two or three times it is marginally too salty. But the cod, the potatoes, the olives and the eggs make a great meal!
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Yeah, this is a very Spanish/Portuguese way to make these. I can’t say I have a preference for any particular style. I love trying all the different versions.
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Just for the heck of it, I have to share. About 35 years ago I was cruising through a new Mexican/Latin American market, went around a corner, and saw a barrel of whole, large, dried fish.
they were completely dried like salt cod would be, although they most likely came from the Sea of Cortez. First time I ever saw that. I was amazed. I’d heard of salt cod but these were big entire fish, head to tail, two to three feet long, probably cleaned inside but otherwise scales and all, and they were slightly curved upward like if you 've ever had an aquarium where a fish jumped out, you know that gentle upward curve. They had a coating of dried salt on them. I was amazed. The only thing I could think to call them, there being no sign or anything, was Road Kill Fish. That’s what they looked like. I wish I’d gotten one, but it was long ago.
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They sell them that way in a mom & pop Portuguese market we go to in New Bedford, MA. They also have large octopus in shrink-wrap in big open deep freezers down the middle of the same isle of the store. The octopus freak me out more than the fish…
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This Trinidadian Recipe Unites Three Generations of Mothers
I couldn’t get the gift link to work, but maybe later.
