Baked salt cod with potatoes and olives

Baked salt cod with potatoes and olives is one of the best-loved fish main courses of Southern Mediterranean cooking: tender potatoes, soft salt cod and a topping of cherry tomatoes, black olives, oregano and breadcrumbs that turns into a golden crust in the oven. It is a flavourful one-dish meal with great visual impact, suited to a Sunday lunch as much as to a dinner with guests, and mopping up the juices with bread is a must.

How do you make baked salt cod with potatoes and olives? You start with salt cod that has already been soaked and desalted, rinsed and dried well with paper towels, and with yellow-fleshed potatoes cut into thin slices and blanched for 5 minutes. In a baking dish you first lay the potatoes, then the salt cod skin side down, then the cherry tomatoes dressed with olives, garlic, parsley and oregano. Bake at 200°C for about 25-30 minutes, switching on the grill for the last 5 to get the crust. One detail to remember: the tomatoes are seasoned without salt, because the salt cod and the olives already bring their own savouriness.

The dressing makes the difference, and here the oil has a precise role. We use our garlic-flavoured extra virgin olive oil: an infusion in which our extra virgin olive oil from the Gargano absorbs all the aroma of garlic, for a full flavour with nothing to prepare. It is used to grease the baking dish and to dress the tomatoes together with the chopped garlic and parsley, so the aroma spreads through every layer of the dish.

It is the kind of recipe you make in a single baking dish, with simple ingredients and flavours that speak of the South: potatoes, cherry tomatoes, olives, oregano. The quantities are for four people and the result, served piping hot with crusty country bread, is a fish main course that pleases everyone.

Ingredients (for 4 people)

• 600 g yellow-fleshed potatoes
• 800 g salt cod, already soaked and desalted
• 200 g cherry tomatoes
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 bunch of fresh parsley
• 150 g black olives
• salt
• garlic-flavoured extra virgin olive oil Oleificio Fratelli Vieste
• black pepper
• dried oregano
• grated pecorino cheese
• breadcrumbs

Method

1. Peel the potatoes, cut them into slices 3-4 mm thick and blanch them in boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Drain them and let them dry.
2. Make a fine mixture of chopped garlic and parsley.
3. Rinse the salt cod, dry it well by patting it with paper towels and cut it into even pieces.
4. Halve the cherry tomatoes, put them in a bowl and dress them with the oil, the chopped garlic and parsley, the black olives, the pepper and a teaspoon of dried oregano. Do not add salt.
5. Grease a baking dish with a drizzle of oil and arrange a layer of potato slices on the bottom, lay the pieces of salt cod skin side down and spread the dressed tomatoes with the olives on top.
6. Sprinkle the surface with more oregano, a tablespoon of grated pecorino and a handful of breadcrumbs.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 200°C for about 25-30 minutes, switching on the grill for the last 5 minutes of cooking so that a golden crust forms.
8. Serve with crusty country bread: mopping up the juices is a must!