These pastéis de bacalhau fritters are delicious. I’ve never cooked salt cod but when I last visited San Juan, I went to a wonderful restaurant called Santaella. When we got there, our table was not ready. The owner was embarrassed (can you believe it!) and offered us two seats next to the bar area where we could wait until our table was ready. He then brought us complimentary cocktails and bacalatos (codfish fritters made from salt cod). They were heavenly as was the rest of the food in that beautiful little restaurant.
So when I saw this recipe to test, I thought it would give me the opportunity to work with salted cod. And I’m so glad I did. Although these fritters were filling, they were also light and very tasty. You do have to start 24 hours in advance if you have a thick piece of salt cod, but most of that time, the cod is simply soaking and there’s not much to do.
Since this was my first time cooking salt cod, I would have appreciated it if the recipe told me whether to refrigerate the fish while it was soaking. However, the recipe was silent on that. I did research on my own and some recipes said specifically to put the fish in the refrigerator while soaking. I compromised and left the cod to soak in a bowl on the counter during the day, but refrigerated it overnight when I was not changing the water as frequently.
I used the technique that the recipe suggests for flaking the cod. It worked very well to put it in a clean dishcloth and pound the cloth with my fist. A word of caution: when forming the fritters, it is not enough to just shape them with the two spoons, they need to be compressed just a bit so they will hold their shape when put in the hot oil. Using my wok to deep fry them worked very well.
The recipe says it makes 24 to 30 hors d’oeuvres. I made mine the size of large eggs, as was called for in the recipe, and got 15. I then served these as a main with salad. They made a great Sunday night dinner. If I were to use them as hors d’oeuvres, I’d make them much smaller.