Clipfish
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Clipfish is salted, whole, dried fish, most often made from cod. The most famous clipfish comes from Norway, where it's traditionally dried in the sun, hanging on wooden scaffolding near the seaside (klipper). Also called baccalà (in Italian), bacalhau (in Portuguese), and bacalao (in Spanish). The name clipfish comes from the Norwegian word klippfisk. Fisk means fish and klipp stems from "klepp", which means rock by the waterside. Clipfish is not the same as stockfish, another type of dried fish. Stockfish is not salted, and is dried only by the wind and the sun.
Clipfish has long been popular in countries like Portugal, Brazil, Spain and Italy, where it's used in a number of dishes.
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[edit] How it is made
[edit] The process
Clipfish is salted and dried fish. The most popular fish used to make clipfish is codfish. The fish is gutted, decapitated, then salted and dried. Traditionally the fish was sun-dried on rocks, but today other means are used.
[edit] Variations
[edit] Types of fish
Most clipfish is made of codfish, and when one talks of bacalhau, baccalà or bacalao, one always refers to clipfish of cod. But clipfish is indeed made of other types of fish.
[edit] Quality
In Norway there used to be 5 different grades of clipfish. The best grade was called superior extra. Then came (in descending order) superior, imperial, universal and popular. These appelations are no longer extensively used, although you can still find some producers making the superior products.
The best clipfish, the superior extra, is made only from line-caught cod. And the fish is always of the skrei, a nowegian word meaning the codfish that once a year is caught during spawning. The fish is bled while alive, before the head is cut off. It is then cleaned, filleted and salted. Fishers and connoisseurs alike place a high importance in the fact that the fish is line-caught, because if caught in a net, the fish may be dead before caught, which may result in bruising of the fillets. For the same reason it is believed to be important that the clipfish be bled while still alive. Superior clipfish is salted fresh, whereas the cheaper grades of clipfish might be frozen first.
Less superior clipfish is salted by injecting a salted water solution into the fish. The superior fish is salted with dry salt.
The superior extra clipfish is also dried twice, much like Parma ham. And between the two drying-sessions, the fish gets to rest and mature.
The best cut of clipfish is considered to be the middle of the back of the fish.
[edit] History
Clipfish has been produced for at least 500 years, since the time of the European discoveries. Originally, there was a need to preserve the codfish; this method preserves many nutrients and, as it is said, makes the codfish tastier.
[edit] Gastronomic use of
The clipfish must be soaked in cold water before cooking, 24 hours per 1 cm thickness of the fish.
[edit] Italy
[edit] Spain
[edit] Portugal
[edit] Brazil
See article on bacalhau.
