By Emily |  Seaside with Emily x CFE Seafoods.

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I’ve been running a tailgate series called Seasidelines for three years now. The whole premise is that seafood belongs at sports moments, and more of life’s everyday moments in general — not just on white tablecloths at anniversary dinners. Every season I find a new way to prove it, and this one almost felt too easy.

We’re in World Cup season. Baseball season. It’s a special time where there is always something to cheer about. And I’m a firm believer that watching sports and snacking on something delicious go hand in hand. And saltifsh fritters are, I’d argue, the perfect game-day snack — crispy on the outside, savory and tender inside, made by hand, eaten by hand, better in quantity. They’ve been passed around crowded Portuguese tables for generations. Your couch on a Sunday afternoon is not that different.

The Diversity of Saltfish

Quick thing I want to make sure you know: saltfish isn’t just cod.

Cod is the most well known one — the classic, the fish the Portuguese practically built a national identity around. But saltfish is also made from pollock, and pollock saltfish is significantly more affordable. After soaking and cooking, the texture and flavor are honestly comparable: pollock runs slightly lighter, cod a little richer and flakier, and in a fritter — mixed with potato, herbs, and a golden crust — you’ll hardly be able to tell the difference.

I tested this head-to-head, one batch of each, side by side. Both came out crispy, deeply savory, and gone within minutes. Salted pollock costs less, performs the same, and it opens the door for saltfish to be a regular thing in your kitchen instead of a once-a-year event. This recipe works identically with either — use whichever your budget and your fish counter offer.

The One Step You Cannot Skip

Saltfish needs to be soaked before you cook it. This is non-negotiable.

Put the fish in a large bowl, cover it completely with cold water, and refrigerate overnight — 24 hours for thicker pieces. Change the water at least two or three times. You’re pulling out the excess salt and rehydrating the flesh. Skip this and I promise you’ll only make that mistake once — unsoaked saltfish is aggressively salty.

You’ll know it’s ready when the fish is soft and pliable, smells like fish rather than salt, and shreds easily with your hands or two forks.

Pastéis de Bacalhau (Saltfish Fritters)

Makes: about 16–18 fritters · Prep: 25 minutes (plus overnight soak) · Cook: 20 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 lb (450 g) CFE saltfish — cod or pollock — soaked overnight, drained
• 1 lb (450 g) starchy potatoes (russet or Yukon Gold), peeled
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
• 1 small onion, finely minced
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Neutral oil for frying (vegetable, canola, or light olive oil)

Method

1. Cook the potatoes. Boil in unsalted water until tender, about 15–20 minutes. Drain well, let the steam escape for a few minutes, then mash until smooth. Cool slightly. (Dry potatoes are the secret to a fritter that holds together — don’t add butter or milk.)
2. Cook and shred the fish. Poach or confit your saltfish until tender. I personally like to confit mine in some olive oil with a bit of garlic, hot pepper, and bay leaf. Once the fish is cooked, shred finely with your hands or two forks.
3. Make the base. In a large bowl, combine the shredded fish, mashed potato, eggs, parsley, and a generous grind of black pepper. Mix until it comes together into a thick, cohesive mass.
4. Form the fritters. Shape by hand into small patties or the traditional three-sided quenelle (two spoons, passed back and forth). They don’t need to be perfect — a little rough around the edges is actually what you want. Those craggy bits crisp up best. I like to let my shaped fritters chill in the fridge for about 20-30 minutes before frying to help them hold their shape.
5. Fry. Heat about half an inch of oil in a heavy pan over medium-high heat (350°F / 175°C if you’re measuring). Fry in batches without crowding, 3–4 minutes per side, until deep golden.
6. Drain and serve. Transfer to a rack or paper towels. Serve hot with lemon wedges.

Make-ahead tip: The mixture keeps covered in the fridge for a day, and formed fritters freeze beautifully. Fry straight from frozen, adding a couple of minutes per side — which means the “there’s a game on in an hour” snack is already sitting in your freezer.

Cod or Pollock? Tell Me.

If you make these both ways, I want to hear it: could you tell the difference? Drop a comment and tell me which one you’d reach for — and which team you were watching when the basket emptied.

Get the fish: To find CFE Seafoods saltfish — cod and pollock — get in touch with the CFE sales team at sales@cfeseafoods.com.

Words and recipe by Seaside with Emily, fisheries scientist and seafood educator. Emily is an award-winning fisheries scientist and seafood content creator who has worked across five continents, telling the story of where our food comes from.

This dish has been on my family’s table my whole life. To me, it’s the ultimate comfort food.

I was recently called to revisit this recipe after our wedding in Portugal. Well, that was one reason anyway. The other was getting connected with the passionate team at CFE Seafoods. I was so excited to connect with a team as excited about saltfish as I was and so when they asked me to bring a recipe to their readers, I knew bacalhau à brás was the perfect fit.

Before we get to the cooking, though, I want to talk about the fish, because saltfish is one of those ingredients that’s so deeply woven into my culture and tradition, and I want to take a moment to celebrate that.

Salt, time, and a very old engineering problem

The practice of preserving fish with salt dates back centuries.

Before refrigeration, fishermen working the North Atlantic had a dilemma. They were pulling enormous catches of cod out of cold, productive waters, but the voyage home could take weeks, sometimes longer. Fresh fish doesn’t survive that. It spoils within days, because the bacteria and enzymes that break flesh down need one thing above all to do their work: water.

So you take the water away.

That’s the entire principle behind salt curing. Pack fish in salt, and through plain osmosis the salt draws moisture out of the flesh until there’s almost nothing left for spoilage organisms to live on. What’s left behind is firm, dense, shelf-stable protein that can last months, even years, without a fridge in sight.

As a fisheries scientist, this is the part I find genuinely beautiful: a technique born purely from necessity ended up being one of the most effective food-preservation methods humans ever invented. And a significant symbol of cultural identity in regions like Portugal.

How a preserved protein became a national identity

What started as survival became something much bigger once it reached Portugal.

The Portuguese built an entire food culture around saltfish. There, it’s called bacalhau, and it’s so central to the national table that there’s a well-worn saying: there are 365 ways to prepare it—one for every day of the year. I’m not entirely convinced that’s meant to be taken literally, though I have eaten bacalhau in more ways than I can count. Whether or not there are truly 365 recipes isn’t really the point. The saying captures just how deeply woven bacalhau is into Portuguese life. It appears on Christmas tables and random Tuesday dinners alike, in grandmothers’ kitchens and Michelin-starred restaurants, fried, baked, shredded, layered, and transformed into dishes that never seem quite the same twice.

That’s the version I grew up around. Of all the ways to prepare it, bacalhau à brás is the dish I’d recognize blindfolded.

The one step you cannot skip

If you take nothing else from this, take this: saltfish must be soaked before you cook it.

Remember, this fish has spent its life having water pulled out of it. To cook with it, you have to reverse that — rehydrate the flesh and draw the excess salt back out. So roughly 24 hours before you plan to cook it, submerge your saltfish in cold water and put it in the fridge. Change the water at least two or three times over the soak, depending how salty you want your dish to end up (more soaks, less salty).

Skip this and you’ll only do it once. Unsoaked saltfish is aggressively, memorably salty. But give it an overnight soak and the transformation is remarkable: the flesh turns soft and pliable, it smells like fish again instead of pure brine, and it shreds apart easily with your fingers or two forks.

That shredded, rehydrated fish is what we build the dish on.

Bacalhau à Brás

I grew up eating bacalhau à brás made by just about every woman in my family. To me, it’s the ultimate comfort meal. Every time I make it, I’m transported right back to my grandmother’s kitchen.

Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 lb (450 g) saltfish (cod is classic; but salted pollock works beautifully and costs less), soaked overnight
• 4–5 medium potatoes, cut into thin matchsticks
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced
• Olive oil
• 2–3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 chopped chili pepper
• 2 cups of fish stock or water
• 6 large eggs, beaten
• Vegetable oil, for frying
• A handful of black olives
• Fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
• Black pepper

Method

1. Soak and cook the fish overnight in cold water in the fridge, changing the water 2–3 times. Once rehydrated, poach the fish. Add olive oil, garlic, bay leaf, and chopped chili pepper to a pan. Cook for 2-3 minutes until fragrant. Next, add fish stock and bring to a gentle simmer. Add the cod, cover, and cook over low heat for 8–10 minutes (or about 10 minutes per ½ inch of thickness) until the fish is opaque and flakes easily. Once it does, place your fish on a separate plate and shred into pieces. Set aside.
2. Fry the potatoes. Heat vegetable oil in a pan and fry your matchstick potatoes until just golden and crisp. Drain on paper towel and set aside. They don’t need to be perfect — you want some crunch, because they’re getting folded into the eggs at the end.
3. Build the base. In a separate large pan, soften the onion in olive oil until translucent and fragrant. Add the shredded saltfish and sauté briefly, just to warm it through and let it mingle. Next, add half of the matchstick potatoes.
4. The eggs — gently. Lower the heat right down (or pull the pan off the heat entirely) and pour in the beaten eggs. Now fold, don’t scramble. You’re after soft, creamy curds that are just barely set — not dry, rubbery scrambled eggs. The residual heat does most of the work.
5. Bring it together. Gently fold in the rest of the crispy potatoes. Scatter over black olives and a generous handful of parsley, and finish with black pepper.
6. Serve immediately.

Why this one stays with me

This is one of those recipes that’s almost embarrassingly simple for how good it is — and honestly, I think that’s the whole point of saltfish. Salting cod started as pure necessity: fishermen just trying to get their catch home before it turned. But somewhere along the way, the Portuguese realized that necessity had quietly handed them something extraordinary.

For me it’s also a recipe full of people who aren’t here anymore, and a few places I’ll always carry with me. That’s a lot to hang on scrambled eggs and a fish. But that’s what this dish is to me.

If you’ve never cooked with saltfish before, this is exactly the place to start. Give it a weekend, do the soak properly, and you’ll understand why this fish earned 365 ways to love it.

If you’re looking to get your hands on some CFE saltfish to recreate this recipe at home, get in touch with the CFE sales team at sales@cfeseafoods.com.