French · Main
Brandade
Salt cod whipped with olive oil, garlic and potato, gratinated to a golden crust — Nîmes comfort food that converts every cod sceptic
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 40 min
- Serves
- 6
Ingredients
- Salt cod fillet — 600 g (soaked 24–36 h, water changed 4 times)
- Whole milk — 500 ml
- Bay leaf — 1
- Garlic — 20 g (12 g poached in the milk, 8 g raw)
- Floury potatoes — 400 g
- Extra virgin olive oil — 150 ml
- Double cream — 80 ml
- Lemon juice — 15 ml
- White pepper — 1.5 g
- Nutmeg — 0.3 g
- Fine breadcrumbs (optional GF) — 30 g
- Black olives, chopped — 40 g
- Flat-leaf parsley — 8 g
Method
- Steam potatoes in skins 25 min; peel and pass through a ricer.
- Poach the soaked cod in milk with bay and 12 g garlic at 80 °C for 8 min; drain (keep 100 ml milk), flake, removing skin and bones.
- Warm olive oil to 60 °C. In a stand mixer with paddle, beat cod with raw garlic on low.
- Alternate additions of warm oil and reserved milk until silky; fold in potato and cream — do not overbeat or it gets gluey.
- Season with pepper, nutmeg, lemon; salt only if needed (taste first).
- Spread into a gratin dish, rake the surface, scatter breadcrumbs.
- Bake at 200 °C for 15–18 min until golden-peaked.
- Finish with olives and parsley.