Salt cod and pappa al pomodoro — a Rowley Leigh recipe

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It is my first visit to Florence for more than 30 years and we are tramping through vast swaths of tourists. I am wearing the wrong type of shoes and have had enough. I peel off from the group muttering the need to find a bank and wander down the side streets. I find no bank but a bar. Fortified by an espresso and a grappa, I trudge on to the restaurant someone has chosen for lunch.

It is decidedly my sort of restaurant. Three connecting rooms, full of animated locals, the white tablecloths gleaming with glassware and the walls bedecked with photographs of 1950s film stars and sportsmen with some alleged connection to the establishment.

My friends have already ordered. Some have committed the unholy solecism of ordering the tomato and mozzarella salad or the pollo sorpresa. I, haughtily and demonstrating my sophistication, order the pappa al pomodoro. Whenever I have eaten or cooked it before it has been a soup, the delicious precursor of all the tinned tomato soups in the world, rich, sweet and deeply comforting. After a bowl of it, one wonders why anybody bothers to do anything else with tomatoes.

What lands in front of me has no aspiration to soupiness at all. It definitely does not move about. It is an intensely tomato-ey mass of soggy bread, delicious in a way, but more work than one wants pappa al pomodoro to be. I want my pappa to slip down the way the Heinz version my mother gave me did when I was feeling a little “peaky”. This dense concoction fails and I give up halfway through, Florence’s enervating climate having destroyed my appetite. However, with my usual magpie approach to gastronomy, I saw a use for this thick, porridge-like dish, and here it is.

Salt cod and pappa al pomodoro

Deep into winter you can make this entirely with tinned tomatoes if they are good enough, but a mix of fresh and tinned is better.

Serves 4

1. Sprinkle half the salt over a small sheet of foil and lay the cod fillets on top. Spread the remaining salt over them, cover and refrigerate for four to six hours.

2. Remove the stalks from the vine tomatoes and drop them in boiling water for 30 seconds and then into a bowl of cold water. Remove the skins, cut the tomatoes in half, squeeze out the seeds and then roughly chop the flesh.

3. Slice the garlic and soften it in a heavy saucepan with three tablespoons of the olive oil. Add the chopped vine tomatoes, season heavily with salt and stew for five minutes before adding the tinned tomatoes. After a couple of minutes, add the bread, chopped or torn into small pieces. Add a cup of water, turn the heat down very low and allow the tomatoes to soak up and assimilate the bread for at least half an hour until you have a thick red porridge. Check the seasoning and whisk in the remaining oil to make this “pap” all the more unctuous.

4. Rinse any remaining salt off the cod very thoroughly. Place the fillets on another piece of foil and sprinkle with the shredded basil, rosemary and chilli flakes. Cover with more foil and bake in a hottish oven (190C) for 10 minutes, until the cod flakes are just beginning to separate. Dress the cod on the pappa with a little more olive oil and serve.

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