Sardinian Prawn salad

Insalata di gamberi alla sarda
This dish is based on a Michele Scicolone recipe from ‘Savouring Italy’, and according to the book it is one of very few Sardinian seafood dishes. I think it is terrific both as a starter and as a main course, and once the prawns have been shelled, the dish can be ready in less than five minutes including the time needed to tidy up the kitchen.

Ingredients
200 g king or tiger prawns
6 dried tomatoes
½ fennel
2 spring onions including the green tops
Lettuce leaves
1 tbsp capers
fresh mint
lemon
olive oil

Preparation
Remove shells and intestines from the prawns, and stir fry them swiftly in a hot saucepan with a little olive oil.
Cut the tomatoes in tiny pieces and soak them in boiling water for 1-2 minutes.
Clean and slice fennel and spring onions.
Chop the mint finely.
Mix the vegetables with mint and capers in lemon and olive oil.
Add tomatoes and fried prawns.
Arrange the salad on leaves of lettuce before serving.

Stoccafisso

Stockfish
It is last call for dried salted cod bought in Southern Italy in the fall. Shop owners always find it hilarious to see Scandinavians stock up on a Scandinavian speciality in Italy, and they do not quite believe us when we say that dried fish costs three times as much, when bought 2 500 closer to its native waters. One of life’s small paradoxes.

As we don’t want to change a tenderloin steaks for preserved cod, we prefer to buy Norwegian fish to last the winter in Italy. It keeps fine in the refrigerator for a couple of months, and the craving for this kind of food passes with the winter.

This year I used the last baccala in a Ligurian recipe, according to which the fish should be boiled directly ihn the suace. Normally, I give it a boil and throw away the water, before mixing the fish with the other ingredients, but this had to be tried, and the result was unsurprisingly …. salty. Next year I think I will stick to my old habits and boil the cod a little on its own first.

Ingredients
500 g baccala, stockfish or other kind of dried salted cod
1 red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 celery stick
1 carrot
1 ltr vegetable stock
2 cans of tomatoes
5 potatoes
Olive oil, pepper, (salt)
Pine nuts, parsley or fresh basil

Preparation
Leave the fish under water for 24 hours to remove the salt. Change the water 2-3 times along the way.
Put the fish in boiling water for 5 minutes
Drain fish, remove skin and bones and cut it into fair sized cubes
Clean, peel and chop onion, garlic, celery and carrot finely and fry it in olive oil.
Add the cod and let it steam for a few minutes
Pour in stock and tomatoes, but remember it is not a soup.
Peel the potatoes, cut them in pieces, and add them to the pan, so they can help to thicken the sauce.
After 1-1½ hour the dish is ready to serve with good Italian bread and a sprinkling of pinoli, parsley and/or basil.

Paste of salted cod

Baccalà Mantecato
One of my friends’ mother is a really good cook, and whenever I meet her, we always exchange recipes. As a thoroughbred Italian, she knows everything worth knowing about Italian ways of cooking, but once I got the better of her. She had asked, how I prepared Baccalà or dried salted cod, and when I told her, I boiled it in milk with garlic and served it as mash on a piece of toasted bread, she looked crestfallen. That was the most unsavoury, unitalian recipe, she had ever heard of, until I took one of her cookbooks from the shelf and showed her the description of Baccalà Mantecato.

She still maintains that Veneto is so far north that their specialities might as well be stranieri, but I’m sure she would like the antipasti, if she had a chance to taste it. Everybody else does.

Ingredients

200 g of baccalà or stoccafisso (dried salted fish)

1 peeled potato

1 glass of milk

2 cloves of garlic

2 anchovies

Juice of ½ lemon

Olive oil

Capers or olives

Rosemary or parsley

Preparation

Soak the dried fish in water for 24 hours or more until the meat is soft and the salt has been washed out. Change the water at reasonable intervals.

Boil the fish for 30 minutes and let it cool in the water. Remove skin and bones.

Cut the potato in small pieces and boil it with garlic. According to some recipes the potatoes should be boiled in milk from the beginning, but I find that it burns too easily.

When the potatoes are tender, drain off the water; add anchovies, baccalà and milk, and bring the mixture to the boil, while you stir vigorously with a wooden spoon.

Mash the ingredients to a paste adding lemon juice and/or olive oil, if necessary.

Sprinkle with black olives, capers, parsley or rosemary before serving with toasted bread and a dripping of olive oil.