There is no specific origin for Cod Pudding; however, we were able to identify this recipe in a more general history: cooking books, which play an essential role on building a national corpus, appear more and more in the 19th century, and codfish recipes do not fall behind. In the 20th century, the big media and TV ended up making recipe books famous together with the methods for preparing the ‘typical’ Portuguese fish, which was codfish. For instance, there is a reference to Cod Pudding in the 1947 O Livro de Pantagruel.
The Portuguese imported the English word for ‘pudding’; however, it was similar to what was already being done in Portugal since the 16th century designated as ‘flan’ or ‘flaones’. We can certainly see that with the spread of recipes and new inventions surrounding the more and more ‘traditional’ codfish, it was only a matter of time before this fish came together with the already known pudding techniques.
Dip the bread into some milk and peel the carrots. Free the codfish from skin and bones and shred it. Chop the onions and sauté with olive oil. Add the codfish, peeled carrots, and squeezed bread. Season with salt and pepper, let it boil, and then remove from the heat. Then, turn the oven on at 180ºC (356ºF) and grease a baking tray with butter and sprinkle bread crumbs on it. Add Béchamel and potato flakes to the codfish mixture. Whisk the eggs and also add them without mixing. Pour the mixture into the baking tray and leave it in the oven for about 30 minutes. When it is done, let it cool down before removing it from the baking tray.
Rosa-Limpo, B.; Caetano, M.M.; Canto, J.B. (2010). O Livro de Pantagruel. Temas e Debates
VVAA (2016). As melhores receitas de Bacalhau – Ideias para + de 100 refeições. Impala
Guedes, F. (2001). As 100 maneiras de cozinhar Bacalhau e outros peixes. Publicações Dom Quixote
Sobral, J. M.; Rodrigues, P. (2013) O “fiel amigo”: o bacalhau e a identidade portuguesa. Etnográfica 17 (3), p.619-649.