Salt Cod Fritters and Brandade – Cook-the-Book-Fridays

Round fritters pan fried more evenly than those shaped in balls

fritters with a tartar sauce

I was told the restaurant businesses have gone down across the board in Manhattan since the election, as compared to the same period in prior years. You can easily get a table in normally busy restaurants. The probable cause, as a restaurant owner explained to me, was that people didn’t feel like going out. They wanted to hunker down and stayed home. To the contrary, take-out places were doing well. Obviously, these observations are simply anecdotal evidence, I did not think much of it. It didn’t occur to me that our emotional state and behavior are so tightly linked to our political life — until now. I’ve found myself having trouble focusng my thoughts to compose a coherent post in the gathering storm on this day. So I’ll keep it brief.

I’ve made brandade before; it was not bad, but nothing special either. To make the David Lebovitz’s fritters from My Paris Kitchen, it’s necessary to buy the salt cod, soak it for 24 hours and make a cod and potato puree. At that point, I split the recipe, oven baked half of it in a gratin dish and made the fritters with the rest. I made the tartar sauce that accompanied the fritters.

I did not want to fry the fritters, for obvious reasons: too much fat. I used a spoonful of oil, dipped the fritters in a beer batter and pan fried them. Slowly, I figured out (my gears turning in fits and starts) that flattening the fritters, shaped initially in small balls followed by a short rest in the refrigerator, with the back of a measuring cup into rounds made more sense. I was able to turn the patties more easily and fried both sides evenly. The flat crusty exterior balanced well with just a thin layer of brandade inside.

Topped with panko and grated Parmesan

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