Lluç amb Salsa d'Ametlles

Lluç amb salsa d'ametlles is Catalan: thick hake steaks cooked in a light fish sauce and finished with a picada of toasted almonds, garlic, bread, and parsley pounded in the mortar. The almond picada, rather than the parsley-led salsa verde of the Basque coast, gives this dish Catalonia's hand. It is quiet food, but not plain.

The point that decides the sauce is when the picada goes in. First cook the sofregit, the slow onion base, until dark gold and jammy, then reduce the wine and stock. Only now stir in the mortar paste and let it barely simmer. The almonds bind the liquid without burying the hake, while the garlic and parsley stay clear. Grind it to nut butter or boil it hard and the sauce turns heavy. I want it glossy and loose enough to run from a spoon.

Frozen-at-sea hake is often better than tired fresh fish, so buy it without apology and thaw it slowly in the refrigerator. If hake isn't sold where you live, use thick fresh cod loin, bacalao fresco, never salt cod. The cod will be firmer and break into broader flakes, but the method stays the same. The Margin beside mine says the sauce should run, not stand. Siempre sale, si lo sigues. It turns out if you follow it.