Correos continues touring the Spanish gastronomy with the series Spain in 19 dishes, making a stop this time in the Basque Country and tasting the pil-pil cod.
To elaborate this recipe we will need as ingredients, for 4 servings:
- 8 slices of cod of 125 gr. each one.
- 1 liter of virgin olive oil of 0,4º.
- 3 cloves of garlic
- A chili pepper
For its preparation:
We put to desalinate the cod of very good quality during 36 hours changing the water 3 or 4 times, it is scaled and the bones are removed. Dry well. The slices should be rather thin.
In an earthenware casserole we put the oil and we put it over medium heat with the oil. Cut the garlic into slices and fry over medium heat and the chili cut into rings. When the garlic and the chilli begin to take color we remove it and reserve. We also remove the pan from the heat. Immediately add the cod slices, skin side down, and then turn them over, leaving them skin side up. We put it over a low heat for 5 minutes without frying the cod. After these minutes, remove the casserole from the heat until the cod has cooled down.
After this time, we remove part of the oil and we reserve, we return to place the casserole with the codfish to alive fire until it begins the bubbling that gives the name to the preparation. When the sauce begins to emulsify, we put the fire very soft, we begin to move the casserole in semicircular sense, at the same time that we are adding little by little the oil reserved previously. The process should not last more than five minutes until obtaining an unctuous and homogeneous sauce.
Garnish the casserole with the sliced garlic and the chili pepper rings and serve hot.
Naturally, it is called "Pil-pil" to other preparations that in particular refer to the codfish in a sauce, well described by experts of other times and of solvency recognized by all.
This preparation, very singular of the Basque Cuisine, is generally applied only to fish, and the name is an onomatopoeia of the gurgling of the oil at the moment of presenting the dish to the table, when it is ready.
