Bake and Saltfish

Easy·30 min active + 25 min resting

The Caribbean breakfast classic — a soft fried 'bake' bread split and filled with sautéed salt cod in onion, pepper, and tomato. The everyday Saint Lucian morning sandwich.

Bake and saltfish pairs a fried (or baked) dough with sautéed salt cod — an Eastern Caribbean breakfast staple across Saint Lucia and the islands. The salt cod is a legacy of the colonial trade, now beloved morning food.

Split a hot bake and steam escapes the soft, puffed bread; fill it with the savory saltfish and bite. Bite: the bake is crisp outside, pillowy and faintly sweet within, the saltfish savory and a little salty with sweet pepper and tomato, the scotch bonnet warming. The hearty handheld Saint Lucian breakfast, washed down with cocoa tea.

Baking powder puffs the dough in hot oil into a light, hollow bake; a little sugar and butter give tenderness. The saltfish is cooked separately so the bake stays crisp until filled. Soaking and flaking the cod tames its salt — the two staples reunited in a sandwich.

Variations

With baked bakes instead of fried (lighter). With avocado. With a fried egg. Spicier. With cucumber. With smoked herring instead of saltfish.

On the Palate

Where Bake and Saltfish sits in the Saint Lucian flavor cloud

Ingredients

Serves 4

How it's made

8 steps · 30 min active + 25 min waiting

1
24 min
Make a dough from 300 g flour, 1 tsp baking powder, a little butter, sugar, salt, and water; rest 20 min.
2
10 min
Soak 250 g salt cod, boil briefly, and flake.
Watch out
Taste the water after soaking — if it's still briny, change it and soak longer; the cod should be pleasantly salty, not harsh, before it goes in the pan.
3
6 min
Fry 1 chopped onion, sweet pepper, tomato, and thyme in oil.
4
4 min
Add the flaked saltfish and a little scotch bonnet; sauté 4 min.
5
10 min
Divide the dough, flatten into rounds, and fry in hot oil until puffed and golden (the 'bakes').
Watch out
The bake should puff up and float within a minute in properly hot oil — if it just sinks and soaks, the oil's too cool and you'll get a greasy, dense round.
6
2 min
Drain the bakes on paper.
7
2 min
Split each bake open.
8
1 min
Fill with the warm saltfish and serve immediately.
Watch out
Fill and eat right away — a bake left sitting steams itself soft from the inside and loses its crisp shell.