To prepare our pasta salad, I recommend using a short pasta such as fusilli or large fusilli, so the ingredients cling to the pasta, making the dish more flavorful and satisfying.

If you don’t have cruschi peppers, you can use raw or cooked peppers cut into thin strips; or sun-dried tomatoes, depending on your preferences.

Let’s start by boiling the stockfish.

Place water in a pot. Add the aromatics and the carrots already washed, cover, and bring to a boil.

When the water boils, add the salt and wait a few seconds for it to dissolve. Then add the pieces of stockfish to the water at a full rolling boil.

Wait exactly one minute and turn off the heat, leaving the lid on the pot. This way the stockfish will cook perfectly without falling apart.

Depending on the thickness of the stockfish pieces, wait between 5 minutes and a maximum of 7–8 minutes before removing them from the water. In my case, the stockfish pieces were about two and a half finger-widths thick, with very firm flesh and took 8 minutes to cook.

If the pieces you have are thinner or have very soft flesh, keep them in boiling water for no more than 5 minutes.

After the time has passed, remove the fish from the water to check if it is cooked through. The flesh of stockfish (as well as that of salted cod subjected to the same cooking, although with longer times) when well cooked, opens and separates as if composed of “petals”, as shown in the photo below.

Remove bones and skin, break up any pieces that are too large with your hands and place in a bowl to cool.

Now let’s take care of the pasta.

Cook the pasta in plenty of water (salted a moment before adding the pasta) for less than half of the indicated cooking time.

To be clearer: in my case the pasta’s recommended cooking time was 13 minutes. I cooked it for exactly 5 minutes, counting from the moment I put the pasta into the water.

This way the pasta will remain slightly undercooked, firm and won’t become mushy, especially if it will be dressed immediately.

When the pasta is ready, drain it very well and put it in a wide, shallow bowl, add the stockfish, one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and mix thoroughly.

Let’s prepare the other ingredients.

Dice the two carrots that were boiled with the stockfish.

Wash and dry the cruschi peppers very well, remove the inner seeds and finely chop them.

Pit the olives, chop the chives (leek or the green stem of a fresh spring onion work well too).

Grate the clean zest of a small lemon and squeeze out all the juice as well.

Finely chop the washed celery stalk as well.

Combine all these ingredients with the pasta, adjust with salt and extra virgin olive oil, mix and let flavor for at least an hour.

Enjoy your meal