These Salt cod patties are perfect for a meal with family or friends, but are also ideal as finger food to enjoy standing in the garden. They are low in carbohydrates, making them a tasty and easy solution for bringing diabetes and celiac disease to the table.

The recipe is inspired by the patties eaten at the Osteria del baccalà in Vairano Scalo, in the province of Caserta, run by Antonio Ruggiero, a lecturer at the ISISS Marconi hotel school in the same locality, where I had the pleasure of tasting an entire menu based on salt cod, an experience that Antonio describes as “Therapeutic salt cod dinner“.

Starting from the story of Antonio’s preparation, I tried to remake them and I must admit that the result obtained is not very far from the original. The certain difference is that in this recipe they are breaded in corn flour, whereas the original Osteria recipe uses white flour.

Salt cod patties

13.18g carbohydrates per 100g patties without accompanying sauce

 Ingredients for the patties

• 440g desalted cod
• 150g boiled potatoes
• 100g sheep or buffalo ricotta cheese
• 65g coarse corn flour*
• 50g milk
• 35g gluten free white bread**
• 5g salted capers
• parsley
• frying oil
• salt and pepper
• extra virgin olive oil

Ingredients for the accompanying sauce

• 300g Ciro Flagella tomato sauce
• 25g triple tomato paste
• 1 clove garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• dried Crusco pepper or sweet paprika
• chili
• salt

**Ingredients specific for celiacs

*Ingredients whose labels must read “gluten-free” (or, in Italy, present on  Prontuario AIC)

Preparation

1. Cook the desalted cod for 20 minutes in a pan, covering it with equal amounts of water and milk. Remove the skin and any bones and let the cod cool down.
2. Boil the potatoes, then peel and dice them. Soak the bread in milk.
3. Prepare the accompanying sauce. Put a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in a pan and brown 1 clove of garlic; add the tomato paste and dilute it with a bit of water, then pour in the sauce; season with salt and cook for 15 minutes. Season with chopped Crusco pepper, or paprika, and chilli.
4. Place the cooked cod in a bowl, crumble it with a fork, then add the diced potatoes, soaked bread, ricotta cheese, chopped capers and parsley and a pinch of pepper. Form small balls of 30g each, roll them in a dish containing a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil so that the corn flour sticks to the surface when rolled on it.
5. Fry the patties in plenty of peanut oil until golden brown and serve with the spicy tomato sauce.

Salt cod patties

Version with gluten of Salt cod patties

Replace gluten-free bread with conventional bread in equal amounts.