So, this is a very important day in Greece, while it is also a celebration of The Mother of Christ’s Annunciation. As it is a fast season, particularly on this day we are allowed to eat fish. And we honour cod!
Also, throughout the country we have many parades as it is the day we celebrate the fight against the Ottomans that began in 1821. Personally, I went to the parade to watch my five- year- old goddaughter whom marched with traditional clothes. She was very cute!
My mother’s traditional plate for this day consists of 3 dishes: fried cod, garlic dip (my grandmother’s recipe from Chios Island) and beetroots’ salad.
So actually in this recipe, the salted codfish stays in the water for many hours to become desalted, then cleaned off of any bones and skin and cut into pieces, then dipped into the frying batter and fried. It resembles the English fish and chips dish.
Ingredients for the cod: 1 kg of salted cod fish with the bone, water to desalt it
Ingredients for the batter: 1 soda water can (330ml), 1 ½ cup of self raising flour, 1tsp of baking powder, salt and pepper
Ingredients for frying: 1 cup of olive oil and 1 cup of corn oil. If necessary, you add some more oil in case this is used up
So, as described above, you let the salted fish cod in the water for 48 hours and change the water 3-4 times per day. Then, you clean the fish and keep its clean meat on the side to prepare the frying batter. In a deep bowl you mix the soda water, the flour, the baking powder, salt and pepper altogether well. You put the cod into the mixture and toss well. You put a frying pan with the oils in high fire and wait until it reaches high temperature and then reduce the fire. You put spoons of the cod fish mixture in the frying pan as follows:
You turn them over 2-3 times so that they become golden on both sides; then you take them out of the pan and place them on paper towels to drain excessive oils.
Ingredients for the garlic dip: 250 gr of breadcrumbs, 1 glass of ground almonds, 4 garlic cloves, ½ glass of olive oil, 2tbsp of vinegar, ½ glass of water, salt and pepper
You mainly use a good blender to make this dip. You first blend the 4 garlic cloves with a little water and put them in a deep bowl. You add the almonds and the breadcrumbs and toss. You add the rest of the ingredients and keep tossing. You put the mixture again in the blender for better and smoother result.
You accompany with a nice beetroots salad.
Enjoy!