Sundays drink was Boulevardier.
1.5 to 2 oz. Bourbon.
1 oz. Campari
1 oz. Sweet Vermouth
Ice cubes and orange peel garnish.
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Thinking about drinking alcohol…
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Good Friday approaches: let the soaking of the baccala commence!
Once soaked (48 hours) it will be poached gently; skinned, boned and flaked; and then layered with thinly-sliced potato, some onion and tomato in a casserole; each layer dusted with parsley and olive oil. It’ll then be baked until the potatoes are just cooked and there’ll be minimum liquid (mostly from the dissolving tomatoes).
I’m the son of a well-lapsed Catholic who wanted me to learn Latin without the help of the Pope or the routine of the catechism. I have no particular views about Fridays or fish, but am fascinated by the history of the Catholic church post-Rome, the Reformation and its relationship with food.
But even in the absence of any religious tradition this dish is truly amazing. Everything is perfumed with cod, which potentially sounds awful but is actually wonderful; the potatoes taste like potatoes; the onion tastes of onion and the fish has a firm texture and ties it all together. I only ever make this at Easter because it’s so simple and so pure and yet so magnificent, I feel like I should only have it once a year, and Easter is just a convenient long weekend where soaking fish for 48 hours is possible.
I’m excited and I’m looking forward to Friday night.
(Edited for grammar)
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Nicely down. Thank you.
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My internal narrator: [dies inside a little bit like my lovely Thai basil]
Must start some more, it’s such a lift to your food.
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They taste like bananas! The seeds are pretty large though and take up a lot of space within the fruit
I tried growing some a few years back. They grow in downstate Illinois so they’re not hard to get in the fall. None of the seeds sprouted though.
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we have paw paws all over my neighborhood.:
you can see how they grow, attached to the trunk of the tree. those are green yet, but in the fall will look like the one up top about to get cut open and spooned into mah mouf!
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Baccala - final dish. I started with roughly a kilo of salt cod and about the same in potato, but by the time the fish was soaked to remove the salt, poached and the bones and skin removed it’s more a flavoured potato dish than anything else.
But how it’s flavoured is amazing. This is one of the few times the phrase “the cod perfume” both makes sense and understates how forking good this dish is. I really don’t want to make it more than once a year - yeah, it’s a lot of work, but I want to hang on to how special it is.
And I know next year I’ll make it and I won’t have got enough salt out and it’ll be disappointing, but right now it’s perfect.
ETA yeah, I like a lot of black pepper.
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Seder went well-
Brisket marinated in pomegranate and walnuts, with a pistachio gremolata, carrot and orange salad, jeweled rice, roasted potatoes, started with chopped liver (pate for the more discerning), chicken soup and matzoh balls, and gefilte fish (salmon and whitefish with plenty of chopped herbs).
Finished off with this beauty
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Yum! Looks delicious!
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We used to get Salt Cod in very cool little wooden boxes.
Bonus! You get a cool little box.
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Yes! When I first saw his post, I jumped up and went looking to see if I still had the one from my childhood that I had kept little trinkets in. It had red printing on it. I was hoping to post a photo! Alas, I didn’t find it in a quick look inside a couple of easily-accessible storage bins, and probably ditched it when cleaning out my mother’s house. As a child, though, that little wooden box was a treasured item.
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I know I have some in the basement hoarding area. Now I gotta look.
Laurie will get excited that I will be getting rid of crap so I will have to sneak.
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A four day weekend means lots of time for cooking, so cassoulet.
Cannellini beans, toulouse sausages, pork belly and some diced mutton.
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These cakes have been made for decades with very old molds. Unfortunately or fortunately for me there has not been a family get together for a couple years so I get to eat both of them.
We also had our traditional cinnamon rolls with ham and decorated hard boiled eggs for breakfast.
If you’ve never used a pressure cooker for eggs you should try it. Couple dozen in 5 minutes and they peel beautifully.
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Those cakes have got to be the furriest sheep and rabbit cakes I have ever seen! Those are really something 
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