Lenten salt cod and cauliflower rice recipe

Salt cod and cauliflower rice, the Lenten paella, is a rice dish with few ingredients and plenty of character: desalted salt cod, cauliflower, garlic and rice, with fish stock. Turisme Comunitat Valenciana cites it among the characteristic rice dishes of the Comunitat as the typical Lenten paella, made with salt cod and cauliflower. It is a meatless rice, which on this page serves three. What goes in it, where the quantities come from and what to watch out for follows.

Where the recipe comes from

The quantities are from Valencia Bonita, which records a “cabbage and salt cod paella” (paella de floricòl i abaetxo) for three diners. According to that same page, it is very typical of the Cabanyal and the Canyamelar, the seafront districts (Poblats Marítims) of Valencia; we have found no other open source that says so, so we present it as Valencia Bonita’s claim and not as a checked fact. The entry gives the ingredients but not the steps. The method and the timings are those of a cauliflower and salt cod paella recipe published on the Universitat de València website, and the name “Lenten” is the one used by Turisme Comunitat Valenciana. The titaina is also from the Cabanyal: tomato and peppers cooked slowly with pine nuts and tuna.

The salt cod and the salt

Salt cod is bought salted and has to be desalted before cooking: the Universitat recipe soaks it for between 4 and 5 hours, which is enough for flaked salt cod; a loin needs 24 to 48 hours, changing the water. The recipe warns of the most important thing, that the salt cod salts the rice by itself, so no salt is added until you have tasted the stock. That is why the salt is corrected after 5 minutes of cooking, and only if needed. If the salt cod is only lightly desalted, you may not need to add anything.

That same recipe prints 250 g of oil for 500 g of rice, a quantity that doesn’t fit a rice of this kind. We don’t copy it: the oil is left to your judgement, just enough to fry the garlic, the cauliflower and the salt cod.

The order in the paella pan

The oil is heated well, the very finely chopped garlic is fried without browning, the cauliflower is added and then the drained salt cod, in pieces or flaked, and everything is sautéed for a few minutes. Then the rice and the paprika go in, and with them the tomato: the base source lists two ripe tomatoes and the Universitat recipe doesn’t use them, so we put them where the El Corte Inglés recipe does, alongside the rice and the paprika. At the end, the very hot stock with the saffron; the recipe insists that the liquid is boiling, or nearly, when it lands on the rice. The Universitat cooks it with very hot water; here we use fish stock, as Valencia Bonita does: the fish fumet, at the rate of 750 ml for 300 g of rice. If you want to know what sets a fumet apart from other stocks, it is in the glossary.

The base source asks for round-grain rice, like bomba rice. The paella pan doesn’t need to be large for three servings, but it does need to be wide, so the rice ends up in a thin layer.

Other versions

There isn’t a single salt cod and cauliflower paella. The Universitat recipe allows peppers or green garlic, sautéed with the cauliflower. The El Corte Inglés one sautés the salt cod, sets it aside and spreads it over the rice at the end, after about 18 minutes of cooking, whereas in the Universitat one it cooks with the rice from the sofrito. We follow the latter, because it is the one that gives the complete method.

In the oven

The Universitat recipe also gives the oven option, in a paella pan or a clay dish. What matters most is that the pan, the water and the oven are all very hot: if the rice takes a while to come to the boil, it overcooks and the grains split. If you like rice dishes finished in the oven, see the Valencian baked rice too.

How to serve it

It is brought to the table in the pan itself, and you should mention that it contains fish: it is among the 14 allergens that must be declared. If you are after another meatless rice, the rice with artichokes and anchovies goes the same way, and the arroz a banda is a classic fishermen’s rice. And if you miss the meat, the Valencian paella is the one with chicken and rabbit. And if it is salt cod that draws you, look at the borreta from Alcoy, the esgarraet, with oven-roasted peppers, or the pericana, with dried pepper.

If there are 40 or more of you at your Lent or Holy Week meal, we cook rice for groups live: see paella and show cooking.