The little soldiers of Pavía (sometimes called soldiers of Pavía or Pavías de cod) are a typical appetizer or tapa from Madrid and some areas of Andalusia. It consists of strips of salted cod coated in a batter containing saffron and fried at a high temperature, very rich and tasty. Normally, Andalusia or Madrid soldaditos de Pavía is accompanied with roasted red peppers and wine to drink.
If you don’t know how to make fresh cod Pavías soldiers in an easy and quick way, follow the recipe that we show you here and you will see how rich and crunchy the cod Pavia’s are.
Ingredients to make Little Soldiers of Pavía:
- 500 grams of desalted cod (from moll)
- 1 unit of lemon
- 1 pinch of white pepper
- 200 grams of flour
- 1 glass of water
- 15 grams of baking powder
- 3 dessert spoons of olive oil
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 liter of oil for frying
- 300 grams of tartar sauce (mayonnaise with gherkin, chives and chopped olives)
- roasted red peppers (optional)
- 1 teaspoon powdered saffron or food coloring
How to make Little Soldiers of Pavia:
- Desalt the cod for 48 hours, leaving it in a container with water in the fridge and change the water every 8 hours. After that time, we dry the cod and cut it into not very thick strips, approximately one finger thick.
- Trick: At the same time check that the fish does not have bones, otherwise you will be able to eat the little soldiers of Pavia in one bite. For this reason, molla cod is normally used to make them.
- Marinate the cod pieces with pepper and the juice of one lemon for 15 minutes. On the other hand, to make the batter for the little soldiers of Pavia, we put the flour in a container, make a hole in the center with it (as if it were a volcano) and add a little salt, saffron and baking powder, the three tablespoons of oil and the glass of cold water.
- Tip: The original Pavia soldiers used saffron threads to color and flavor the batter, but you can replace them with powdered saffron or food coloring.
- Mix all the ingredients to form homogeneous dough and let the Pavia soldier’s batter rest, well covered, in a warm place for 15 minutes. Once the dough has rested, we coat the cod strips with this tempura and fry them in plenty of very hot oil as if they were churros.
- Tip: Add more or less water or flour depending on the texture of the batter.
- After frying, remove from the pan and let the Pavia soldiers with fresh cod rest in a dish lined with kitchen paper so that excess frying oil drains off.
- We serve the Pavía soldiers hot and accompanied by a tartar sauce, made with mayonnaise to which a little gherkin, spring onion and chopped olives are added. You can also present them on endive leaves and lemon curls. But above all, don’t forget to accompany them with some roasted red peppers and a good table wine
