Recommendations

Cod cakes with Kopke Fine White Port

On the plate are small deep-fried cakes of salted cod and potato, warm and well salted. Opposite them the port sets a chilled glass with residual sugar and freshness, which smooths the salt and takes away the fat of the pan.

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From the shelf

The bottle

Kopke is a port house from the Douro and the Fine White is the white port from the standard range. White port is made, like all port, in the demarcated Douro region: fermentation of the must is stopped by adding wine distillate, so residual sugar remains and the wine ends up at 19 to 22 percent alcohol. This bottle is at 19.5 percent alcohol and comes in 75 centilitres. The house blends it from wines that have matured at least three years, partly on stainless steel and partly on wood, without an age statement on the label. The Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto sets a serving temperature of 6 to 10 degrees for white port.

Kopke Fine White Port

The combination

Why this works together

Cod cakes are salty, and frying adds fat to that. Sweet and salty are not equal partners in the mouth: in the taste research of Green and colleagues from 2010, sweet proved to be the strongest suppressor of the other basic tastes, and the perception of salt in a mixture with sucrose was rated more than eighty percent lower. The residual sugar of this white port does the same in practice, so that the salt of the cod comes in less sharply. In addition the port is served cold, and a cold sip takes the frying fat off the tongue, so that the next cake starts clean again. The weight fits too: a fried bite is substantial but small, and a glass of 19.5 percent is full enough to stand its ground alongside without taking over the plate.

At the table

The dish

  • For 4 people
  • Ready in 1 hour and 15 minutes, plus soaking overnight
  • Type starter

What you need

  • 400 g floury potatoes, unpeeled
  • 280 g salted cod
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 small onion, very finely chopped
  • 2 tablespoons of finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
  • 1 to 2 tablespoons milk, only if the mixture is too dry
  • about 1 litre sunflower oil for deep-frying
  • salt

How to make it

  1. Soak the salted cod overnight in plenty of cold water and change the water twice.
  2. Boil the potatoes in their skins until done. Peel them while warm and press them through a potato ricer or a sieve.
  3. Let the soaked cod steep gently in boiling water for 10 to 20 minutes, until it falls apart. Drain, remove the skin and bones, and flake the flesh very finely.
  4. Mix the potato with the cod. Add the eggs one at a time, then the onion and the parsley. The mixture should be firm enough for a spoon to stand upright in it; if it is too dry, add a tablespoon of milk. Season with salt and let it cool completely.
  5. Heat the oil to 190 degrees. Using two tablespoons, shape oval patties and carefully lower them into the oil.
  6. Deep-fry the cookies golden brown, turning them three to four times. Let them drain on kitchen paper and work through the whole mixture this way; you will have about twenty-four cookies.

In the glass

Serving

Pour the Fine White between 6 and 10 degrees, the band that the Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e do Porto uses for white port. A small tulip-shaped wine glass, filled by a third, holds the freshness better than a wide glass. Decanting is not necessary; the bottle can go straight from the cooler onto the table. Once opened, a modern-style white port keeps well for eight to ten days in the fridge according to the same institute; a traditionally made white port keeps fifteen to twenty days.

Everything about Kopke Fine White PortBack to Recommendations from ’t Bockje

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