It’s a Portuguese tradition to have a salt-cod dish on Christmas Eve. There are as many ways of cooking salt-cod as there are families. In Portuguese salt-cod is called “bacalhau”.

In our family salt-cod has a mixed reception. My Dad loves it done the uber-traditional way – boiled salt-cod, boiled potatoes, boiled onion, boiled cabbage and boiled egg. It’s presented on a large platter filled with the steaming food. Once on the plate, olive oil and vinegar is drizzled over, and some people like putting chopped garlic on as well.

Most of us don’t enjoy it like this because it’s very bland. It really is! I prefer a more eclectic dish.

My hubby made Bacalhau a Gomes de Sa. The “bacalhau” is boiled and the bones taken off. Then the bacalhau is layered in an oven-proof dish with onions, potato rounds, olives and green pepper. Before popping it into the oven copious amounts of olive oil is drizzled over. My hubby caramelises the onion and green pepper beforehand and this lends the dish huge depth of flavour.

He doesn’t use as much olive oil as the original recipe – he drizzles over white wine and cream as well. This then gets baked until the potatoes are cooked and the top wonderfully crispy. It’s garnished with sliced boiled egg before serving. This variation went down a treat with our very mixed family.

So as you can see today I had a boring day hence the paucity of material for my blog. Bland just like the boiled variety…