Pataniscas

Pataniscas de bacalhau are Portuguese salt-cod fritters: flaked, desalted cod folded into a loose batter of flour, egg, chopped onion and parsley, dropped by the spoonful into hot oil and fried into ragged, golden, lacy discs about the size of a palm. They are a Lisbon and Estremadura dish above all, eaten as a petisco with a beer at the counter of a tasca, as a starter, or as a main course over arroz de feijão, the tomatoey bean rice that is their classic partner, and they are one of the standard uses for the leftovers of a boiled cod dinner. They differ from the bolinho de bacalhau, the other Portuguese cod fritter, in having no potato and no shaping: a bolinho is a smooth, mashed, torpedo-shaped croquette, a patanisca is a flat, irregular pancake in which the flakes of fish are visible. The name is also applied to vegetable fritters, pataniscas de legumes, made the same way.