Dish Of The Week: Cod In Crazy Water And Magic Paper

What? 

Merluzzo alla Livornese

Where?

Cicchetti, King Street West (in the south west corner of Kendals, House of Fraser), City, 0161 834 6226

How much?

£9.95

Translate please

The name means 'cod cooked in the Livornese way'. Livorno is a port city on the western side of Italy. It's all right too, not the most attractive place but worth half a day's tourism, more of a working town though. The Brit gents on the Grand Tour in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries used to call it Leghorn. It was a port where lots of the romantic poets, Byron, Shelley and the like, sailed from. In fact it was the last place on earth where Shelley stood, before he drowned as the ship he was on foundered in sharp twenty minute storm. But shall I talk about the dish?

Yes, please

The secret lies in the preparation by chef Francesco Guarracino. He prepares it in magic paper with crazy water.

Eh, have we regressed to nursery school?

Nope, magic paper or witch paper, 'carta fata' in Italian, allows all the ingredients in a dish to cook in the oven together, aiding absorption of flavours and minerals from the other. It maximises the mingling of the raw materials: cod, olives, capers, cherry tomatoes, white wine and two un-sung extra special babies, crazy water and mint.

                                  San Carlo Cicchetti Merluzzo Alla Livornese In Carta Fata

Mint with white fish? Crazy water?

Crazy water is salt water, the only spare water sailors on boats had to hand for the cooking process. Mint sounds scary, it should choke all the other flavours in the dish. Instead it gives the flavours a lift at the back of the throat. Presented in a big skillet, there's a bit of ceremony too.

Go on

Guarracino, who incidentally is a lovely enthusiastic Italian with the best accent ever, opened the bag by releasing gold string at each end. The eruption of glorious food smells was like a volcano going off. Steam everywhere. And the result was true to the promise, a delicious festival of ingredients, dancing around a perfectly cooked cod which nestled in a crazy water fish stock that had to be spooned up like soup. A brilliant dish. Rustic. Robust. If you're passing nip in and try it, it's worth every penny.

Pictures aside from the last on this page from The Vain.

San Carlo Cicchetti Merluzzo Alla Livornese Francesco Presents The Dish

Carta Fata, Magic Paper