Golden cod (bacalhau à bras) recipe

Golden cod, known in Portuguese as “bacalhau à bras”, is one of the most traditional dishes of Portuguese gastronomy. Made with salted and crumbled cod, very thinly sliced potatoes and egg, it is a perfect dish for Lent and Easter, as well as to surprise unexpected guests, since it is very easy and quick to prepare. Likewise, it is an ideal recipe to take advantage of pieces of cod that we have left over or that we have in the fridge without knowing what to do with them.

The golden cod recipe may remind us of scrambled eggs, since it has broken eggs, but it is much more complete because it includes fish, onion, potato and other ingredients that we detail below. It should be noted that in Portugal we can find different variants of this popular dish, we have chosen the original base recipe. Keep reading to discover how to make cod bras or golden cod.

Ingredients to make Golden Cod (bacalhau à bras):

350 grams of salted cod

1 onion
3 potatoes
4 eggs

1 jar of black olives
1 pinch of salt
1 splash of olive oil

1 pinch of parsley

How to make Golden Cod (bacalhau à bras):

Before starting, you should leave the cod to soak for 24 hours, changing the water 3-4 times. This will allow you to desalt the cod. When making the recipe, dry it cut it into strips or crumbles it with your hands. You can make Portuguese-style cod crumbs or prepare the dish with larger pieces, to your liking!
Tip: If you desalt the code directly into pieces, the time is reduced by half.

Peel the potatoes and wash them well under the tap to release some of the starch. Then, cut them into very thin slices and then into equally very thin strips to make the straw potatoes. One of the characteristics of the golden cod recipe is precisely how thin the potatoes are, so don’t hesitate to use a mandolin if you have one.
Trick: You can also leave the potatoes for 15 minutes in a bowl with water so that they release the starch better.
Peel and cut the onion into thin strips and fry it in a pan or casserole with a good splash of hot olive oil. Leave it until it is golden brown, take it out and reserve it.

Heat another frying pan with plenty of oil over high heat and, when it is hot, fry the potatoes in small batches so that they do not stick. Take them out as they cook and leave them on a plate with kitchen paper to absorb the excess oil. When they are all set aside to continue with the cod a bras recipe.
In the same pan where you have poached the onion, sauté the salted cod for a few minutes.
When the cod is sautéed, add the onion and the straw potatoes. Stir and let everything cook together for about 5 minutes over medium heat so that the flavors are integrated. We do not recommend adding salt because the code already has enough. However, you can try to assess if, for your taste, you need a little more.

Beat the eggs in a plate or break them a little. Then add them to the pan and stir to make the golden cod. We recommend doing this step at a low temperature so that the eggs set little by little and remain juicy. When everything is mixed, turn off the heat and remove the pan.
Serve the golden cod recipe right away, sprinkle with parsley and add the black olives. You have already seen that the Portuguese cod a bras itself is not complicated, what happens is that it has different cooking methods and, therefore, it can be a more complex recipe than others. In any case, the result is totally worth the effort invested.