Pastéis de Bacalhau

Pastéis de bacalhau are shredded salt cod and mashed potato bound with egg, shaped by hand into small ovals and deep-fried until golden. They are one of Portugal's most familiar fried snacks, shaped by two spoons rather than a mould, which gives every one its distinctive uneven, egg-shaped form.

What it really is

Salt cod, soaked and shredded fine, mixes with mashed potato, egg and chopped onion and parsley into a dense paste firm enough to hold its shape without a wrapper or breadcrumb coating. Two spoons, dipped in the hot oil, shape a portion of the mixture into an oval directly over the fryer before it's dropped in, a technique that takes practice and is exactly why the shape is never perfectly uniform. Fried until the outside turns deep golden, the inside stays soft and moist rather than firming up hard.

The two-spoon shaping is a real skill, not decoration. Anyone can pack the mixture into a mould, but the traditional oval shape, formed freehand between two spoons directly over hot oil, is a genuine mark of a properly made pastel de bacalhau.

How it is served

• Hot, a few per portion, often with a squeeze of lemon.
• As a starter or a snack, rarely a main course on its own.
• Alongside other fried appetisers on a shared table.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the fish, the egg and the wheat if any flour is used in the mixture.
• Say how many come per portion, since these are sold and eaten individually.
• Note if they're shaped and fried to order, since that genuinely affects the texture of the finished pastel.