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Bacalhau à Brás – plated and served
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Bacalhau à Brás

Salt cod with matchstick potatoes and egg. This is Portugal's most frequently cooked Bacalhau dish, and it is ready in twenty minutes.

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Preparation
30 min
Cook/bake time
20 min
Total
24 hr 50 min
Difficulty
Medium
Calories
581 kcal
Servings
4
Prep
30 min
Cooking & baking
20 min
Resting
24 hr

Only 50 min of that is hands-on – the rest takes care of itself.

Salt cod with matchstick potatoes and egg. This is Portugal's most frequently cooked Bacalhau dish, and it is ready in twenty minutes. The trick lies at the end: the beaten eggs are added off the heat and should only bind into a creamy sauce, not scramble. If you cook them through, you will end up with scrambled eggs and fish instead of Bacalhau à Brás.

Why this works

This dish stands or falls on the temperature of the eggs. Egg proteins begin to coagulate at around 62 degrees and are completely set at 70 degrees. If you add the beaten eggs to a hot pan on the stove, you will have scrambled eggs within seconds. With the heat turned off and constant stirring, the mixture stays in the range between 60 and 65 degrees, where the proteins just start to form a network: the result is creamy and binds the ingredients together instead of breaking them apart. The second crucial point is desalting the salt cod. Bacalhau is preserved with around twenty percent salt. Only 24 to 36 hours in water that is changed multiple times will bring it down to an edible level, while simultaneously allowing the flesh to plump up and become tender.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Soaking the salt cod

    Place the Bacalhau in cold water for 24 to 36 hours and change the water at least four times. It is preserved with around twenty percent salt, making it inedible without soaking. Afterward, let it drain, remove the skin and bones, and pull it into coarse flakes.

  2. Frying the matchstick potatoes

    Cut the potatoes into very fine matchsticks, rinse them briefly, and pat them thoroughly dry. Fry them in batches in olive oil until golden brown and crispy. Rinsing is actually the right move here: the surface starch would otherwise cause them to stick together.

  3. Onions and fish

    Sweat the onions and garlic in the same pan until soft without browning them, and add the Bacalhau flakes. Let them warm through for two minutes. The fish is already cooked and only needs heat.

  4. Folding in the potatoes

    Fold in the matchstick potatoes and season with pepper. Add salt only now and use it sparingly: the Bacalhau still brings plenty of saltiness despite the soaking. Everything should be loosely mixed, not pressed together.

  5. Eggs off the heat

    **Take the pan off the heat**, pour the beaten eggs over the mixture, and stir briskly until they bind into a creamy sauce. This takes about one minute and happens solely through the residual heat. On the stove, it would turn into scrambled eggs in seconds. Serve with olives and parsley.

Our best tips

  • The pan must be taken off the heat before the eggs are added. This is the one step where this dish can fail, and it cannot be undone.
  • Fry the matchstick potatoes in batches. An overcrowded pan lowers the temperature, causing the potato strips to steam and become soft instead of crispy.
  • If you cannot find Bacalhau, salt 400 g of fresh cod, let it sit for two hours, rinse it, and poach it. It is not exactly the same, but it comes close.

Tasty variations

With potato chips

Quite common in Portugal as a shortcut: use unseasoned potato chips instead of frying your own matchstick potatoes. This saves twenty minutes and works surprisingly well.

Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá

The same ingredients, but prepared as a casserole with potato slices instead of matchsticks and hard-boiled eggs instead of a creamy binding. This is Portugal's second great Bacalhau dish.

Nutrition facts

Per serving (1 portion)
Calories581 kcal
Protein44 g
Carbohydrates36 g
– of which sugar5 g
Fat26 g
Fiber6 g

Where the 581 kcal come from

per serving
Calculated from the ingredients – how we do it

We add up reference values for every ingredient and divide by the number of servings. These assumptions are baked in:

  • Reference values per 100 g – for the raw ingredient, exactly as listed.
  • Tinned goods count at drained weight, bone-in meat at purchase weight: you eat about 70 per cent of a chicken thigh and leave the rest.
  • Water evaporates as you cook. The energy stays in the pot, the weight does not – so the figure is per serving, not per 100 g of finished dish.
  • Anything listed without a quantity – “salt and pepper” – is not counted.

A guide value, not a lab measurement: no two onions weigh the same, and fat content varies from pack to pack.

How we calculate nutrition →

Frequently asked questions

How long does Bacalhau need to be soaked?

For 24 to 36 hours in cold water that is changed at least four times. Thick pieces need longer than thin ones. Unsoaked, it is simply inedible with its roughly twenty percent salt content.

How many calories are in Bacalhau à Brás?

Around 580 kcal per serving. The olive oil for the matchstick potatoes contributes the largest part. Baking the potato strips in the oven lowers the value to about 450 kcal.

Why did my eggs turn into scrambled eggs?

The pan was still on the stove. Egg proteins are completely set at 70 degrees. The residual heat of a turned-off pan, on the other hand, only brings them into the creamy range around 62 to 65 degrees.

Can I use fresh fish?

It will become a different dish. Through the salting process, Bacalhau develops a firm, fibrous texture and a concentrated flavor that fresh cod lacks. As an emergency solution, salt fresh fish for two hours, rinse it, and poach it.

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