{"id":1053,"date":"2018-11-07T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T08:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tchakayiti.com\/home\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2022-10-14T20:39:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-15T00:39:09","slug":"morue-codfish-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tchakayiti.com\/home\/morue-codfish-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Haitian dried salted codfish in oil"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Haiti, codfish is about as popular as salted smoked herring. Our repertoire of recipes is quite rich. It includes cod in sauce, croquettes prepared with lame veritable<\/a>, chiquetaille \u2013 a recipe, which is quite similar to that of the smoked herring chiquetaille<\/a> \u2013 and stuffed puff pastries, to name just a few.<\/p>\n

However, while around the world, they eat this fish fresh, here, we only seem to consume it in its dried salted version.<\/p>\n

It took me quite some time to befriend codfish. Throughout my childhood, one of my worse nightmares was to have it served as the main dish at our family table.<\/p>\n

At my house, we mostly ate it cooked in oil or in a sauce. And both those recipes call for a generous amount of onions and shallots.<\/p>\n

We all know I am not fond of those two ingredients.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, salted codfish is flaky and tends to attach itself to any added ingredient. My tiny fingers thus struggled to separate them, which led to a lot of frustration. I actually liked the saltiness of the fish, but I simply couldn\u2019t handle eating it as prepared.<\/p>\n

I was at my happiest when they served codfish croquettes. It is perhaps the only Haitian salted codfish preparation that does not seem to call for an excessive amount of shallots and onions. That recipe, which I hope to be able to share with you one day, allowed me to enjoy the taste of the codfish without the annoying shallot and onion bits.<\/p>\n

But, for some reason, codfish in sauce seemed to find its way to our table way more often than the croquettes. Every time they served it, I would pout.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until recently that I learned to appreciate it. That day, they seemed to have finally felt my pain. Instead of flaking the cod, they had cut it into chunks that made it easier to separate it from the ingredients my palate does not like. That was enough to make codfish in oil more edible.<\/p>\n

I was no longer eating an onion and shallot salad brightened with a hint of cod.<\/p>\n

I was so delighted that day that I even agreed to eat it as an appetizer. In case you didn’t know,\u00a0 codfish is the perfect topping for fresh bread, crackers and crispy cassava<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This newfound taste encouraged me to learn to prepare it myself. It is that recipe that I share with you today.<\/p>\n

I, of course, abide by strict rules:<\/p>\n