Bacalao a la vizcaína
Salt cod in a deep red sauce of dried choricero peppers and onions cooked slowly until sweet.
What makes it bacalao a la vizcaína
- Salt cod, desalted, skin on.
- Choricero pepper pulp — the colour and the sweetness.
- Onions stewed very slowly; tomato only a little, if at all.
Where it comes from
Vizcaína means from Bizkaia, Bilbao's province. The sauce is built from choricero peppers — dried sweet red peppers, soaked and scraped of their pulp — and onions stewed for a long time. Whether tomato belongs is argued; purists say it doesn't.
Like pil-pil, it's a Bilbao way with the salt cod that fed the city through Lent and hard winters, and the sauce is made on its own and kept, ready for the fish.
How it varies
- With tomato
- The more common home version, brighter and a little sweeter.
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Near it
BasqueBacalao al pil-pilSalt cod poached in olive oil with garlic and chilli, then swirled until the oil and the cod's gelatine become a thick sauce.1 version hereBasquePiperradaPeppers, onion, tomato and garlic stewed slowly in olive oil until soft and sweet — eaten alone, with eggs, or beside meat and fish.No one here has made it yet