The Crunchy Italian Snack You Must Try This Holiday Season

No one has ever accused Roman cuisine of being too bland. With it becoming famous Permutations of pasta, guanciale and cheeseAnd with a huge list of hearty quinto-quarto-offal dishes, there’s little chance that you’ll leave the Eternal City feeling delicious after a meal. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything lacking in the snacking department. Bakeries help attract people by lunchtime with pizza bianca and pizza rosa, while pastry shops and coffee bars sell rich pastries such as mariotto, brioche buns filled with lightly sweetened whipped cream. In the afternoon and evening, the pastry shops hand over control of the city’s sweet tooth to gelaterias, and the bakeries hand over the reins of delicious breakfasts to pizza al taglio shops, the Roman equivalent of slice shops, for dinner. By the time it’s time to sit down, the wood-fired pizzeria is open.

Snackin’ on Fritti

Along with pizza, both types of pizza establishments typically serve fritti, a category of fried snacks that includes sappio telefono, Rome’s answer to Sicilian. aransinPotato Croquettes; fiori di zucca, battered, squash blossoms filled with anchovies and mozzarella; and filetti di baccala, or fried salt cod fillets. While none of these breaded, battered and deep-fried morsels are lights, In fact, for the most part they’re very shareable and easily transportable, drinking snacks that work especially well as pre-pizza amuse-bouches. Baikal’s files are an exception; Even by Roman standards, they are substantial.

What is Filti di Baccala?

The easiest way to describe Filet di Baccala is “extra salty British-style battered fried fish”. Salt cod fillets are soaked in water for several days to rehydrate and soften the meat, while also reducing its salinity. Pieces of fish are coated in a light batter made of flour and sparkling water (no beer here, but sometimes an egg comes into the mix) and fried until crisp and golden. The soaking period before frying results in the baccala being cooked well, with a flaky but distinctly firm texture that stands up well to the crunchiness of the batter. All it takes is a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to make the fish delicious.

It may seem a bit strange to compare Roman fried baccala with British fish and chips, but both dishes were probably introduced here. Sephardic Jews who migrated from the Iberian PeninsulaThe Norman conquest of southern Italy in the late 2nd millennium AD introduced the region to dried cod, known as stockafiso or stockfish in Italian. But salted dried cod did not begin to appear on the Italian peninsula until the late 15th century, which is also the period when Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal, the salt cod centers of the world.

Nowadays in Rome, filet di baccala is served as an appetizer in most sit-down pizzerias, which are equipped with deep fryers for fish-frying, and their wood-burning ovens that make pizzas, fish-frying. Help hide the smell. , Pizza al taglio shops generally don’t make battered fritti like squash blossoms or salt cod, as they have a much shorter shelf life, while breaded scallions and croquettes can sit for a while under a heat lamp without losing their crispness. I love a good piece of fried fish, but I usually like to pregame the pizza with a half-dozen olive escolanes, deep-fried olives filled with meat. When I need filet di baccala, I head to Santa Barbara’s Dar Filetaro, just a stone’s throw from the historic Jewish ghetto. If we stick to the fish and chips comparison, it’s like a Roman chippy: it serves fried salt cod, and that’s it. When Puntarelle is in season you can get Puntarelle salad with anchovies and a cold mediocre wine. This is a perfect pre-dinner meal.

Filet di Baccala at home

Making filet de baccala at home is quite simple, but here in the US it requires some advance planning because of the soaking requirement. (In Rome, salt cod sellers often have tubs of baccala pre-soaked so customers can cook with it as soon as they bring it home.) You need salt cod fillets, but real fillets, with the small belly and tail removed. Not the end scrap. A lot of places try to pack in cute little wooden boxes. They are great for making pieces brandedBut they won’t work here. Soak the salt cod – After several rounds of testing, I decided on a three-day soak, which is enough time to reduce the saltiness of the fish without overcooking it – changing the water frequently, ideally every day. At least twice. After soaking, all one has to do is divide it into long strips, batter the strips and fry them.

For the batter, I use some of our standard Serious Eats tricks of the trade. sifting flour with cornstarch, using vodkaAnd being careful not to overmix the batter helps limit gluten development. The sparkling water and baking powder help aerate the batter, creating tiny bubbles for a light crust. Serve these light and crispy Filet di Baccala with some wine as a before-dinner snack, perhaps before cooking a pizza or two, or as the opening salvo at a seafood feast.

cook mode
(keep screen awake)