Cabillaud à la Portugaise

Cabillaud à la Portugaise (cod with tomato, onion, garlic, and white wine) teaches the timing of a cuisson, the cooking liquor: the sauce must reduce at precisely the rate the cod cooks. Before you touch the pan, know the one true thing about this dish. The sauce isn't made around the fish or corrected afterward. The cod is pressed into the garnish so its juices join the wine and tomato from the beginning.

The original formula assumed five thick half-pound slices for ten people, a broad sautépan, and a range with a hot open fire at its centre and gentler heat along the side. It needed neither a saucier nor a stockpot, because the garnish builds its own sauce. For four, two thick half-pound cod loins preserve the original proportion and cooking time; a wide lidded skillet and a turn of the burner replace the two fire zones. The brigade-sized pan is scaffolding and can go. The covered five minutes followed by the uncovered twelve-minute reduction is the dish and must stay. What the book calls a faggot of herbs becomes one small tied bouquet garni. One cook, one stove, one evening.

When it lands on the platter, the cod should separate into broad pearly leaves beneath a rust-red garnish, with enough glossy liquor to spoon over but no watery moat. The uncovered simmer decides everything. Watch the fish and the reduction together, and if one finishes first, lift the fish or loosen the sauce. Ça se rattrape.