Pataniscas de Bacalhau

In every tasca in Lisbon, there's a moment around six in the evening when someone behind the counter starts dropping spoonfuls of batter into hot oil. The smell fills the narrow room. Regulars at the bar look up from their imperial beers. Everyone knows what's coming.

Pataniscas are not pastéis de bacalhau. Pastéis are the little croquettes, carefully shaped, interior hidden. Pataniscas are their wilder cousins: flat, lacy, the shreds of cod and thin slices of onion visible through the golden batter. Nothing to hide. Isto é como a avó fazia.

I learned these from my tia in Alfama, not from Avó Leonor. Alentejo doesn't have much of a patanisca tradition (too far from Lisbon's tascas), but my tia Maria made them every Friday. She'd fry them in a skillet so old the handle had been rewrapped three times with electrical tape. She never measured anything. A handful of this, a splash of that. The batter was always perfect.

The secret is simplicity. Bacalhau, properly soaked. Onion, sliced thin. A batter that holds but doesn't dominate. And heat. You need the oil hot enough that the fritters sizzle the moment they hit, forming that lacy edge that crunches when you bite through to the soft, salty cod inside.