Culinary Tours in Portugal: Salt Cod Recipe with Wine Pairing

Codfish is highly popular everywhere in Portugal, considering the country has over 1,000 ways to prepare the fish (and let’s not even talk about how many ways there are to prepare it in Italy and Spain, too — save that for a cooking class!). But what wines should you drink with this traditional ingredient, where it’s boiled, dried, fried, baked, and oh so much more?

Cod fish has a very strong flavor, so it needs a wine that can complement and stand up to it. When it’s salt cod you’re serving as ‘bacalhau à brás’ — one of the most popular ways — you have a little bit more leeway in what you can pair with it, as the scrambled eggs and potatoes temper the flavors of the fish.

We’ve talked about port wines before, but those are best left for sweet dishes, including desserts. Rather, stick to other Portuguese wines, such as whites that are full-bodied, as well as light to medium reds. More specifically, reds made with Trincadeira grapes work well; the acidity of the grapes will help balance the flavors of the salted cod. The wine estate of Esporão, which you visit during our Delectable Portugal in Historic Evora cooking vacation, also makes a number of wines that are well suited to cod dishes.

So now that you know what to pair that salted cod dish, how do you make it? Sofia, the hostess of our Portugal cooking vacation, shares a traditional recipe.