Broodje bakkeljauw like in Suriname (with trassi, tomato and garlic)
A broodje bakkeljauw is a Surinamese white roll filled with desalted saltfish, stewed soft with onion, garlic, tomato, tomato puree, a Maggi cube and trassi. You finish it with zuurgoed pickle and Madame Jeanette sambal. Once the fish is desalted, the whole job takes about an hour.
What bakkeljauw actually is
Bakkeljauw is salted white fish, traditionally dried as well. You will also see it written as bakkeljouw, bakkaljauw or batjauw, and in plain Dutch it goes by klipvis or rotsvis. The name travelled with the trade. It comes from the Portuguese bacalhau, by way of the Spanish bacalao, and the heavy salting was the whole point. A well-salted fish keeps for up to a year, which is exactly what you needed on the long voyage to Suriname.
Here is the part most recipe blogs get wrong. They write gezouten kabeljauw, salted cod, and leave it there. Diaspora bakkeljauw is usually not classic cod. Most of it is saithe, the fish the Dutch call koolvis and the British sell as coley or coalfish. Since the cod stocks on the Grand Banks collapsed, modern saltfish is often saithe, pollock, ling or tusk. Albert Heijn even labels theirs honestly as Alaska pollock. None of this changes the recipe. It only means you should not chase the most expensive cod-labelled product. For a broodje bakkeljauw, good clean saithe filet is exactly right.
One thing to keep straight, because it trips a lot of people up. Bakkeljauw is not stokvis. Stokvis is air-dried and unsalted. Bakkeljauw is salted. They are two different fish products, and the loose label Surinaamse stokvis for bakkeljauw is simply wrong.
Desalting the fish (uitkoken), the step you cannot skip
Put bakkeljauw straight in the pan and it is inedibly salty. So every bakkeljauw recept starts the same way, called uitkoken in Surinamese kitchens. There are two methods, and both work.
The fast way. Drop the fish in a pot with plenty of water and boil it 15 to 20 minutes. Pour it off, taste a flake, and if it is still too salty, do it again with fresh water. Two rounds usually does it.
The slow way. Soak the fish in cold water for about 24 hours and change the water every 3 to 4 hours. This is gentler and keeps more of the fish texture, but you have to plan ahead.
After that, rinse it cold, squeeze out the water with your hands, and flake it apart. Now go through it with your fingers and pick out every bone. If you bought filet, that takes a minute. If you bought the cheaper split fish on the bone, take your time. Nobody wants a bone in their broodje.
Buy a filet if you want the easy life. Migas, the small shredded boneless pieces, also works well and saves you money. Whichever form you buy, the desalting is the same.
What you need
This makes enough filling for roughly four broodjes. The Surinaamse broodje stands or falls on the bread, so get proper witte puntjes if you can.
- 300 g bakkeljauw (saithe filet or migas), desalted and flaked
- 2 onions, finely chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
- 1 heaped tablespoon tomato puree
- 1 Maggi cube
- 1 teaspoon trassi (shrimp paste), or a bit more to taste
- 2 tablespoons oil
- Black pepper
- 4 Surinaamse witte puntjes
- Zuurgoed (Surinamese pickle) to serve
- Madame Jeanette sambal to serve
The trassi is what makes it taste like the toko instead of a bland tomato fish. Start with a teaspoon. It is strong, and you can always add more.
Making the filling
Heat the oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Add the onions and let them go soft and a little golden, about 6 to 8 minutes. Do not rush this. Soft onions are the base of the flavour.
Add the garlic and the trassi. Stir it through for a minute until you smell it. The trassi will hit your nose, that is normal and that is the point. Now stir in the tomato puree and cook it for a minute so it loses its raw edge.
Add the diced tomatoes and the crumbled Maggi cube. Let everything simmer down into a thick, soft sauce, about 8 to 10 minutes. If it gets dry, add a splash of water.
Fold in the flaked bakkeljauw. Turn the heat low and let the fish warm through and drink up the sauce, around 5 minutes. Taste it. It probably does not need salt, because the fish and the Maggi already carry it, but grind in some black pepper. The filling should be moist, not wet, so it sits on the bread without soaking through.
Building the broodje
Warm the witte puntjes for a few minutes so the crust crisps and the inside stays soft. Cut them open, but not all the way through.
Spoon a generous amount of the warm bakkeljauw filling into each roll. On top goes the zuurgoed, which cuts the richness with its sour bite, then the Madame Jeanette sambal for heat. Go easy on the sambal the first time. Madame Jeanette is a serious pepper, and a little goes a long way.
Eat it straight away, while the bread is warm and the filling is hot. This is the broodje bakkeljauw I grew up around, the one you queue for at the toko on a Saturday. Once you have made it at home with the trassi in there, you stop ordering it out.
If you want to take the same filling further, it is the heart of plenty of Surinamese dishes. Heri heri pairs it with cassava, sweet potato, plantain and egg, and telo is fried cassava with bakkeljauw, the Surinamese answer to fish and chips. But the broodje is where most people start, and it is still my favourite.
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