This is the recipe you need to take your Seven Fishes dinner from good to Nonnina's house.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 AngiesHomeCooking | 2011-12-29 06:28:09 |  5,723 Views |
Baccala salad
If you’ve spent time around Italian-Americans you’ve probably heard of Festa dei sette pesci or — The Feast of the Seven Fishes. This is the traditional Christmas Eve meal when practicing Catholics abstain from eating meat for the day. One thing that almost all Italian-Americans agree on is that a non-negotiable pillar of the meal is baccala. And while it can colloquially mean “a fool” or “a slap” the term literally refers to salted dried cod fillets. It’s a dish reserved for celebrations and is most often eaten during the Feast of the Seven Fishes or during Lent.
Baccala is inherently shelf-stable helping to preserve a single fish for even longer. In southern Italy where The Feast of the Seven Fishes originates it’s part of what’s known as cucina povera or “peasant cooking” — and before refrigeration it was often the only way for people who couldn’t always afford fresh fish to eat it.
When you buy baccala it is stiff and coated in salt. To turn it back into juicy delicious fillets you first need to soak it in water. Depending on the size of the pieces and how dry it is the baccala will need to soak in water for anywhere from 12 hours to two days; you can test this by squeezing the fish to see if it is tender. It is incredibly important to remember to change the soaking water at least twice a day. (I have so many childhood memories of being told to go into the basement laundry room of my grandparents’ house to change the baccala water in the days leading up to Christmas Eve.)
