fish mashed potatoes

I have a recurring nightmare where I attend the first day of a class, it feels like college and I come to it with a particular desire to make up for past mistakes. Like, to be a good student this time. Time then warps (classic dreamtime) and I am lost, moving through a fog of confusion I find the classroom and it feels like just in time. It’s the third to last class, I’ve missed every lecture and assignment with a few to go for me to soak in the shame of my failure.

This has been happening a little more lately, speaking to the power that “back to school” still has even though it’s been over 8 years now. The butterflies are still deep in my stomach and I am thinking about how to attend to them. Which makes me crave brandade. A treat from cod, salted to preserve it indefinitely, also a little ritual and a lesson. When I told my boyfriend (and frequent collaborator) Mac about this week’s blog he remarked that there is no food I’ve learned more from. And I had never thought about it explicitly, but now I am.

When I was actually in college I would often go read at Jody Williams’ restaurant Buvette in the West Village. Everything was really small and expensive, also delicious. It wasn’t really a productive place to be, teetering on a stool at the bar with a thimble of water and a single tiny plate. I was really just going to eat brandade. At Buvette they served you a pot of brandade, cold from the fridge with a side of warm toast made from craggy bread. I was enamored with the fishy potato spread, though it took a few years, the distance of another city, and the responsibility of explaining difficult menus to reconnect with that dish.

This particular dish served in this particular way demonstrates the value of both texture and temperature in food as the toast and the spread contrast. The toast is warm and dry, sometimes scratching the top of your mouth. The spread is the salve, cool and soft, sort of soothes the incident with the toast. I realized I noticed these things before I noticed how it tasted, which is also good actually. But the flavor was secondary in a way I just didn’t know how to value before (this is represented actually in the “How to Taste Food” suggestion list I wrote for my coworkers, shared in Flavors saved my life pt 1). This felt so new and refreshing to me, watch any Food Network program and they say the word flavor or phrase “amount of flavors” many times. It also recently has opened the door to my love of the breakfast burrito from Milk & Honey, a study in soft. And a good food for when your wine job butts heads with your flower job. We haven’t spoken much about hangovers here but maybe someday. The other lesson is one about labor and pressure in restaurants. I’ve come to love that this can be made before service by someone cooking, devoting their attention to this one thing (who knows if this is the kitchen at Buvette I am just riffing) to be passed off to the server for the final touches. Putting bread into a toaster, putting these two things on a plate. Handing it to me. I sometimes think about how it would be possible to reorganize labor in a restaurant, this sometimes makes me think it could be possible.

I obviously also tried to make it to pretty ill effect. The first was for a dinner party that had a dips appetizer spread. I used Jody Williams recipe and maybe did it wrong (? I was young), but it was too liquidy. Would never set to create the thick fishy mashed potato I was looking for. Giving up a bit too easily, I wouldn’t try again until 5 years later when I was thinking about Rainbow Wines actually. A bar menu, how Cub and I could have a “Big Night” that didn’t break us. Brandade had become essential to that.

I’m still learning from brandade, you really can always go deeper. Salt cod appears in many cuisines, with roots as something cheap and accessible in Portugal, Southern France, and Italy. It is no longer that cheap and definitely not accessible (salt cod can be hard to find, but Fresh Market in Bucktown usually stocks it in a box and Armitage produce has it in large pieces). It was also a food produced in the US for export, to feed enslaved people working sugar plantations in the Carribbean. Links that I learned from are here and here. While the roots for this dish and American salt cod production are a bit different they intertwine in my kitchen (when I buy salt cod from Fresh Market it is from “Bos’n”) and show me a part of history that was hard to get in school. These are the stories I’m interested in learning and working with now. Perpetually back to school I guess.

Brandade and butter I made for my bday this year

Brandade Recipe (a tweaked version from Margot Henderson’s cookbook “You’re All Invited”) for 6-8 people

This is not a spur of the moment recipe, but I think appropriate for a food that has offered so much meditation. It also uses a lot of kitchenware (sorry).

250g salt cod fillets

couple sprigs of thyme

2 bay leaves

1 lemon

200g yukon gold potatoes (or similar)

150ml olive oil

2 cloves gently smashed garlic

100-150 ml heavy cream

salt & pepper

1. Soak the salt cod in water for 24-48 hours, changing the water as much as you can.
2. Put the fish in a small pot with fresh cold water, the thyme, bay leaves, and half a lemon.
3. Bring to a boil, then turn down to simmer for about 15 minutes.
4. While the fish is going peel and chunk your potatoes. I just throw them into the pot that had the fish when it’s finished cooking, turn the heat up and let them boil until soft (20-25 minutes).
5. When the potatoes are in the pot, measure out your olive oil and put it to a pan on low heat. Add the garlic and let them infuse into the oil for about 5 minutes.
6. Take the potatoes out and mash them in a bowl big enough to eventually fit all the ingredients.
7. Add the fish to a food processor and blitz it while slowly adding most of the garlicky oil.
8. Put the fish in the mashed potato bowl and mix. Add the cream until achieving your desired consistency, probably adding a little more oil as you go too. 
9. Use the other lemon half, salt, and pepper to taste.
10. Serve cold, drizzled with olive oil and a side fresh toast as an appetizer, snack or part of a larger spread. You can also warm it up and eat it as an entree if you’d like, maybe with braised green beans and possibly a sausage, it is getting colder out.

a "spread" from the same day (the pot is full of beans and greens)

For wine, I didn’t drink wine when I would eat this so they are not necessarily twinned in my head though I do think it’s excellent wine food. Cub and I were just talking about how this is the best time of year to drink whatever you want because the Chicago weather doesn’t feel so exhausting and demanding. A time you can afford to be a bit more intellectual. So I would suggest to open something you’re curious about, get distracted by it and dig into it. You can always DM us with questions about the stories of the wines, a lot of the time there is almost too much to say in other places.  Or you can try this Aligoté.