AI photoFried Salted Cod with Lentil Cream
Crispy fried salted cod served on a creamy lentil purée, finished with cracked black pepper.
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Ingredients
- 300 g Plain flour
- 1 pcs Ginger fresh, grated
- 1 pcs Eggs
- 75 g Cornmeal
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 pinch Black pepper
- 1 bunch Celery
- 1 pcs Carrot
- 1 pcs Onion
- 200 g Lentils
- 300 g Salted cod soaked and desalted
- 500 ml Vegetable oil for frying
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- 100 ml Water cold
- 500 ml Vegetable stock
Steps
Finely chop the celery, carrot and onion, put them in a pan with a little olive oil and sauté for a few minutes.
5 minAdd the lentils and cook, gradually adding the vegetable stock.
30 minIn a bowl mix the flour, cornmeal, egg, a pinch of black pepper and cold water. Add the freshly grated ginger and mix well.
5 minChill the batter in the fridge.
15 minCut the salted cod into 4 pieces, dip into the batter and fry in plenty of hot vegetable oil at 175°C until cooked through.
10 minPlace the cooked cod on a paper towel to drain excess oil.
2 minBlend part of the lentils with a splash of vegetable stock, a little salt, black pepper and olive oil.
3 minSpoon some lentil cream onto a plate, top with the cod and sprinkle with black pepper.
What was changed
Replaced Cornmeal: this batter cornmeal isn't sold in the UK, so plain cornmeal is used instead for the same crisp coating.
Salt cod was never meant to be eaten fresh — it was eaten because fresh fish didn't survive a cart ride inland before refrigeration. Fishermen gutted the catch, packed it in salt, and the salt pulled the water out of the flesh, which is also what pulled the bacteria's water out. The dish you're making is the opposite journey: you spend a day or two putting the water back in, soaking and changing the liquid, coaxing the fish back toward something like its living texture without losing the firmness salt gave it. If you buy cod that's already "soaked and desalted," you've skipped the hard part — but taste a corner before you batter it. Under-desalted, the whole plate tastes of brine; over-desalted, you've got expensive white fish with no character left.
What decides whether this works is two separate things behaving correctly at once: a batter that stays crisp around fish that stays moist, and a lentil purée that's smooth, not gluey. The batter's job is to seal the fish fast in hot oil so the inside steams in its own moisture rather than drying out — that's why the batter goes into the fridge before frying. Cold batter meeting hot oil sets instantly on contact; batter at room temperature slides and soaks before it crisps, and you get a soft, greasy shell instead of a shell at all. Cornmeal mixed with flour isn't decoration — it fries drier and crunchier than flour alone, because it doesn't form the same stretchy gluten film that goes chewy rather than crisp.
On the fish itself: salted cod, bacalhau-style, is what you want, and in the UK that usually means a fishmonger who deals with the Portuguese or Spanish trade, or a well-stocked international grocer's freezer — rarely the supermarket fish counter. If you genuinely can't get it, fresh cod fillet seasoned with salt an hour before cooking and patted dry gets you close in texture, though you lose the deeper, almost cured flavour that real salt cod carries. Don't substitute smoked fish — the smoke fights the ginger instead of sitting quietly under it.
The batter's three parts each do one job. Flour gives it structure and a bit of chew at the edges. Cornmeal gives the crunch — any fine polenta or even coarse semolina will do the same work, the test is that it should feel slightly gritty between your fingers, not powder-soft like flour. The egg binds the two dry elements into something that clings to wet fish instead of falling off in the oil. Cold water, not warm, keeps the whole mix sluggish and thick rather than runny — runny batter means thin batter means it burns before the fish cooks through.
Ginger, grated fresh, is there for lift against the richness of fried fish and starchy lentils — it's not traditional to every salt cod recipe you'll find, but it earns its place by cutting through rather than adding more weight. Ground ginger from a jar won't do the same thing; it's dusty and one-note where fresh ginger is sharp and a little citrus-bright. If you don't have any, a little lemon zest in the batter does similar work for a different reason — acidity instead of heat.
For the lentil cream: use whichever small lentils you've got — brown, green, or the little orange ones, which actually break down fastest and give you the smoothest purée with least blending effort. The vegetable stock should be made or bought, not just a cube dissolved and forgotten — it's going into the lentils gradually as they cook, which does two things: it stops them catching and sticking to the base of the pan, since a British hob's rings run hotter and less evenly than a kazan's open flame, and it lets the lentils absorb liquid slowly so they cook through evenly rather than turning mushy outside and gritty in the centre. Add it a ladle at a time, not all at once.
When you blend part of the lentils for the cream, keep the rest whole if you want texture on the plate, or blend the lot if you want pure contrast — crisp fish against smooth purée is the more striking plate, and also forgives a slightly uneven fry.
Frying at 175°C is the number that keeps the oil hot enough to crisp the batter in the time it takes the cod to cook through, without scorching the outside before the inside's done — if you don't have a thermometer, drop a cube of bread in; it should turn gold in under a minute. A domestic hob and a decent saucepan holds this heat well enough for four pieces of fish, but don't crowd the pan — too much cold batter dropped in at once pulls the oil's temperature down fast, and you're back to soggy shells. Fry in batches if you must, and keep the oil's heat recovering between them.
Patience shows up twice here and both times it's the part people skip. Fifteen minutes resting the batter in the fridge is not optional waiting — it's the difference between a shell and a stain. And don't rush the lentils off the heat the moment they look soft; give them the full simmer so they're truly breaking down, because a purée blended from half-cooked lentils stays grainy no matter how long you run the blender.