Esqueixada :: Catalan cod salad

Swedish version here

As soon as I can, I try to show you all the typical Spanish cuisine from my Spanish kitchenette. By the time now, you might know that Spain + food is the perfect relationship in our country and that we don't understand a tradition, season or party without a special dish for that occasion.

Today I am bringing you one of the most famous Catalan salads ever: esqueixada or cod salad. As you might be thinking right now: yes it is perfect for 1) summer and 2) to eat fish if you aren't a proper fish-lover ;-)

Write down the ingredients and let's start!

Ingredients (4 people) 

• 300 desalted cod 
• 1 red pepper
• 1 green pepper
• 1 chive
• 20 gr of black olives
• 50 ml of olive oil
• salt

Elaboration
First of all, if you haven't desalted the cod yet; do not ask me, I don't know how to do it! What we personally do is to buy it already desalted so, let' be practical ;-) Actually, last week cod was in a good prize so we took advantage of it and bought a huge piece that the fishwife cut into small pieces and fixed it nicely for us. The only thing we had to do was freezing it. So, if you are at the same point as we are, take a piece of cod and defrost it (I personally put it directly from the freezer to the fridge for the whole night and cook it the day after).

Grab the piece of cod and rip off the skin with the help of a knife. With the clean cod crumble it with your fingers. And here is a free tip when finishing: squeeze some lemon on your hands and rub them to get rid off the fishy smell.

Now, cut the red and green pepper into small strips. Do the same with the onion and put everything together with the cod. 

Chop the tomatos and add them to the previous mixture. Grab the black olives and cut them into slices. Add them to the salad and mix everything together.

The key of this dish, besides the good quality of the fish, is the dressing. We need to end up with simple olive oil vinaigrette where our cod salad will lay on. Water the salad with the olive oil, add the salt and blend until all the ingredients are integrated and you can see the olive oil shining all over the cod, pepper, tomatos and the onion.

Put the salad in the fridge and wait for 4 hours until eating it. I personally like having the salad the day after to make sure all the ingredients and flavours are settled down.

Now you know another Spanish recipe to try at home!

Enjoy it!