Bacalao al Pil-Pil

From Traditional Basque Cooking: History and Preparation, by José María Busca Isusi, 1993

The history of the people who live in the three Spanish Basque provinces of Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya and Álava[, with Navarra acting as a "bridge" to the French Basque provinces,] is covered by a haze like one of those sudden, blinding fogs that sweep south from the fish-laden Bay of Biscay to hide the land and the people - shining clear in the sun one minute, gone the next. No one knows exactly who the Basques are or where they came from. There are many theories; the one currently in vogue claims that the Basque peoples trace back to the original Iberians who first came to the Peninsula. The biting, fractured syllables of the rounded Basque language, Euskera, are not even vaguely similar to the sounds of Castilian, Catalan or even Portuguese - for Basque is not a Romance language and therefore does not have the same root. It is as foreign to the ears of any other Spaniard as Castilian would be to a Japanese....

Male gatherings devoted to cooking...are a popular social form in Spain. The men prepare their own repasts, accompanying the cooking and eating with singing, dancing, singing and male talk. Such gatherings range from formal Basque gastronomic societies, which turn out some of Spain's finest dishes, to casual get-togethers of neighbours like those [pictured here] in a farm house in Palencia province:

First, the men cooked a chick-pea stew (potatje de titos), shown simmering below beside a brace of veal chops:

When it was done, they served themselves huge portions of it, washing it down with red wine; then they danced and sang to the music of the antique violins, shown hanging from a rafter [in the photo above], until the wineskins ran dry....

But if you are introduced to Basque cooking in one of the private Basque gastronomic societies themselves, you will be served the kind of meal not to be found anywhere else in the world. The great gastronomic societies are set apart for those who truly like fine food and cooking; membership is limited, and a young Basque wishing to join must usually wait until an older member's departure for kitchens of ht next world has left a space in this one.... If you want to see inside one, there are only two requirements. First, you must be invited by a member as his guest. Second, you must be a man, for food and cooking in the Basque provinces is and has always been solely man's work. Basque women are respected, loved, and treated with infinite attention and kindness - in their proper place. Their proper place is not the kitchen.

When inviting you, your host will look guardedly to his right and his left, and with something faintly like a leer, will ask, "Are you a man who likes food. . . ?" in the tone of voice usually reserved by men for another kind of question. Say yes, and walk with him down the brown-grey cobblestone streets of San Sebastián's old quarter on the evening of a spring day, through the gusts and sharp sea breezes. The white clay, backed by low hills, is cupped around the sparkling blue Bay of Biscay....

Walk now up a steep hill ending at a building with a large oak door, and your host will pull out a large key and unlock the sanctuary. Every member has such a key, and when the door is unlocked you enter through the foyer into the single big room that is thick with the smells of simmering seafoods and herbs, fresh country vegetables and fowl and meat. This is the banquet room, living room and reading room combined; in fact, it is the only room. Long, solid, dark tables line the clean, white walls, benches on one side, chairs on the other. The room is functional and comfortable, but there is none of the attempt at luxury of the usual men's club; men come here to sit up and eat well, not to sink into the leather cushions and doze. Here the general rule is that no man wears a necktie, let alone a jacket. On the left as you walk in is a wall-niche containing a round object that looks like a roulette wheel with slits that empty into a big communal cup at the centre. This is the money till, where at the end of the week each member pays for what he has eaten or drunk. The honour system reigns. No man checks up on other members, no one asks to see what anyone else puts in the till, and each man keeps his own accounts. Life here is democratic; as you walk in, you will see lawyers, bankers, fishermen and salesmen sitting together and walking or reading their newspapers before dinner, side by side at the wooden tables. To the right is an alcove where liquors and apéritifs are kept, but there is no bartender; each man helps himself and his neighbours....Wine is brought in barrels and bottled on the premises; beer comes in vast kegs. At the far end of the room, with no separation, is the [vast, well-equipped] kitchen... A robust man of about 55 is cleaning and washing several soles; another younger man is cutting up a chicken and preparing to brown it in oil after dotting it with garlic, parsley and paprika; another can be seen chopping onions and keeping an eye on a steaming casserole that smells of lobster and white wine. Any of them will show you what he is doing, how he is doing it, or why there is not any other way of doing it that will come out exactly right. There are no secrets here.

Photo credit: http://www.foodsfromspain.com/FicherosEstaticos/spaingourmetour/REPORTAJES-Y-RUTAS/ilus_pano_SOCGASTRO.jpg

Being a guest at one of the Basque gastronomic societies is like being the only non-famous person at a Hollywood cocktail party: everybody talks to you. Each chef here is a star, and a man who cannot cook at all is very much in demand because everybody else can cook for him. Your host had better keep a tight hold on you if you are not a born chef, for you are a rare commodity. The minute you sit down, someone will come up asking you just to try this or only to taste that....

Photo credit: http://sn00p.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/cimg01231.jpg

The Basques are snobbish about seafood, no matter how fresh, that is taken from other waters. A fish, they claim, relaxes too much in the warm Mediterranean and loses its vitality and taste; too far north in the Atlantic the fish, except for cod, are so cold they lose their taste through rigidity. But catch a fish in the blue-grey waters of the Bay of Biscay, and it will be vibrant and alive with taste, ready for the kitchens of Basque chefs who give it the treatment it deserves.

Other ingredients, such as the peppers and parsley included above, may be used as garnishes. Bacalao al pil-pil is served in the earthenware pot in which it cooks. When placed on the table at the Guria restaurant in Bilbao (below) it is accompanied by a glass of txakoli, a local white wine. A wedge of cheese made from sheep's milk serves as dessert.

[Pil-pil sauce is made by combining] garlic and oil and the juices of the fish, but the dish is never stirred. In the Basque kitchen, a casserole is more often gently shaken or jiggled during cooking to prevent the food from sticking, and it is simmered very slowly until the fish juices have blended perfectly with the olive oil to make the sauce - the taste of which, in this land of sauces, might be described as what the fish meant by being a fish. As a rule, the Basques do not believe in adding things to a sauce that will suddenly change its taste, for they do not want the taste changed. The texture and flavour of a sauce grow gradually out of the basic ingredients; little seasoning, if any, is used.... The Basques believe that taste, texture, colour and the wholeness of the sauce must be a subtle combination of simple ingredients blended by the hands of a [cook] who respects the natural flavours of the foods enough not to disguise them, but rather to work to bring them out as strongly as possible. That, perhaps, is the singe aim of all fine cooking in the zone of sauces; the level of quality is high because of it.

This is the traditional recipe for bacalao al pil-pil prepared as by Chef Karlos Arguiñano.
Bacalao al pil-pil is one of the most traditional recipes; the preparation is simple but requires practice, and its result is spectacular. Pil-pil is the name of the sauce that slowly develops when the juices of the cod thicken and are blended with the olive oil while cooking the cod.
 
To desalt the cod, you must first pass the pieces under running tap water and then place them in a container with fresh water in the refrigerator (to not suffer temperature changes). The water should be renewed every 8 hours. If the cod pieces are small or thin, three changes of water is enough (24 hours). If the cod fillets are thick, they will require 6 changes (48 hours).

To serve 4:

4 slices of salted cod
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 dried chili
300 ml. extra virgin olive oil

Description:

Put the oil in a low, wide casserole. Peel the garlic and sauté in olive oil over medium-low heat until lightly browned. When browned, transfer the garlic to a plate and set aside. Clean the chili and chop it into in 4 pieces, sauté the pieces briefly in the same olive oil and remove them to a plate. Reduce heat to low.

In the same oil, introduce the cod fillets (first with the skin side up) over low heat. Fry them four minutes per side and remove them to a plate. Reduce the heat to the lowest setting and allow the pan to come down in temperature. Meanwhile, transfer the cooking oil from the pan to a bowl. Transfer any cod serum that is in the pan to a separate bowl. As the cod rests and tempers, more serum will be released; pour this serum off into the bowl containing the serum from the pan. Wait a few minutes for the oil to cool until it is warm. Keep the oil and the serum separate as much as possible.

Put a little warm oil in the pan along with a little cod serum. With a strainer, gently whisk and stir the oil and serum over the low heat as they blend together and begin to turn light-coloured and opaque; this is the beginnings of the sauce. Add the reserved serum to the pan slowly, gently whisking and stirring with the strainer constantly in order to thoroughly incorporate it into the developing sauce. Add half of the remaining oil very slowly, whisking and stirring gently and constantly with the strainer as it blends into the sauce. With a wire whisk, blend in the remaining oil, continuing to move the sauce gently and constantly as the thick, ivory-coloured sauce is formed.
 
Gently return the cod fillets to the pan - skin-side-up and heat throughout for a few minutes over the low heat, occasionally keeping the fillets and sauce in gentle motion. Gently plate the fillets - skin-side-up - and cover with sauce. Garnish with the garlic, the chopped chilies and also with parsley, if desired.

Original Spanish version: http://www.hogarutil.com/cocina/recetas/pescados-mariscos/201107/bacalao-9398.html