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NICE COOKINGCouhina nissarda

Main dishes

Estocaficada

L'estocaficada

Estocaficada is the stockfish stew of Nice: wind-dried cod soaked for 8 days, then simmered 3 hours with tomatoes, peppers and onions, finished with potatoes and olives.

Published

Whole dried stockfish, wind-dried cod, stacked in a wicker basket on a market stall
Photo credit: Wolfgang Meinhart / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
Prep
30 min
Cook
3 h 30 min
Total
4 h
Serves
8
Difficulty
Medium

Method

  1. Eight days ahead, cut the stockfish into pieces 3 to 4 cm (about 1 1/2 in) long. Put them in a large container with the tripe and cover with cold water, ideally under a trickle of running water.

  2. Without running water, change the water at least twice a day for the 8 days. Keep the container where the smell will not bother you.

  3. Six hours before serving, drain the fish. Separate the flesh from the bones and skin, and keep the bones and skin in a large pot. Flake the flesh into a colander and let it drain.

  4. Peel 2 of the onions and put them whole in the pot with 1 garlic clove and 1 bay leaf. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and boil 20 to 30 minutes. Strain and keep the broth.

  5. Grill the peppers in the oven until the skin is charred, then peel them and cut them into strips. Peel, seed and chop the tomatoes. Slice the remaining onions, chop the remaining garlic finely and cut the tripe into strips about 5 mm wide.

  6. Heat 100 ml of the olive oil in a large sauté pan. Brown the flaked fish, stirring, until it turns pale golden.

  7. Add the marc, the sliced onions, the garlic and the bouquet garni, then tip everything into a heavy casserole with the remaining 50 ml of olive oil.

  8. Deglaze the sauté pan with the tomatoes and scrape them into the casserole. Add the tripe and the peppers, season with salt, pepper and a pinch of Cayenne, and cover.

  9. Cook over low heat for 3 hours. Every so often, moisten the stew with a little of the broth.

  10. Quarter the potatoes and blanch them in boiling water. Add them to the casserole with the olives after 2 hours 30 minutes of cooking.

  11. Serve hot, with a small jug of olive oil on the table so each guest can pour a little over their plate.

Tips

  • Do not rush the soak. The Cuisine Nissarde recipe from the city of Nice starts 8 days ahead, and a Norwegian cookbook of 1955 quoted by Slow Food Bergen gives 6 to 7 days with the water changed twice daily.
  • Start cooking soon after the soak. Rehydrated stockfish keeps only a few days, says Slow Food Bergen, so do not start the soak earlier than the recipe says.
  • Keep moistening with broth. The label recipe says the sauce should still be fairly plentiful at the end, because it has to soak into the potatoes.
  • Expect a strong smell for several days while the fish rehydrates, and again while it cooks. It is worth persevering, says Notes de Cuisine.

Watch it being made

Caracci Joseph Stockfish recette Niçoise — La Z (YouTube). The player loads only when you press play.

Estocaficada, the stockfish stew of Nice

Estocaficada is the stockfish stew of Nice: wind-dried cod, soaked for about a week, then cooked slowly with tomatoes, roasted peppers, onions and garlic, with potatoes and black olives added near the end. The Cuisine Nissarde label recipe published by the city of Nice is titled “Le Stockfish” and gives both names, estocafic and estocaficada. Monaco has its own version under the name stocafi.

Nice is thought to have met stockfish through merchant ships from Flanders, bound for Italian ports, that put in at Nice and Villefranche. The hotel trade union UMIH Nice Côte d’Azur says Nice “probably” discovered it that way. The label gives the season as all year, mostly winter. Our guide to Niçoise cooking describes it as a strongly flavoured stew and an acquired taste. Sophie Brissaud, who ate it weekly as a child in a village in the hills behind Nice, says it has nearly disappeared.

Buying and soaking stockfish

Buy stockfish: cod dried outdoors on racks by cold wind, with no salt. Salt cod is a different product, and the soak is different too. The importer Verrini gives 8 to 10 days for fully dried unsalted stockfish and 3 to 4 days for salted fish. Stockfish is usually cod, but Notes de Cuisine and Le Gourmeur both name haddock; the label just says stockfish.

The label recipe also calls for 160 g of dried stockfish tripe (boyaux), soaked with the fish. Cut the fish into pieces 3 to 4 cm long and put them in water 8 days ahead, under running water if possible. The label asks for exactly that. Without running water, Le Gourmeur says to change the water at least three times a day, while Sophie Brissaud and a 1955 Norwegian fisheries cookbook say twice. Brissaud adds that in the old days the pieces were wrapped in cloth and soaked in a stream.

How cooks in Nice make it

Every version soaks, flakes, browns and stews. They differ in time, flavourings and finish.

Version Soak In the pot Cooking Finish
Cuisine Nissarde label (Ville de Nice) 8 days, with the tripe Fish flaked and browned, marc, roasted peppers, tripe, broth from bones and skin 3 hours covered, low heat Potatoes and olives at 2 h 30, olive oil jug at the table, optional anchovy purée
Notes de Cuisine About 10 days Fish browned in plenty of olive oil, short broth from the fish guts At least 2 hours Potatoes, then olives a few minutes before serving
Film at the École Hôtelière de Nice, 1965 Soaked ahead White wine, eau-de-vie, baked in the oven In the oven Potatoes and olives near the end, pounded anchovy purée, sometimes walnuts
Sophie Brissaud (2025) 8 days, twice-daily changes Tripe soaked for a shorter time At least 2 hours, plus about 40 minutes Potatoes and olives for the last 40 minutes

The label stands out for the tripe, the marc and the peppers grilled first. In the 1965 film the chef says some old Niçois always finish the dish with pounded anchovies, garlic and herbs, and some add walnuts. The label offers the same finish as an option at the table: 30 g of pounded anchovies with garlic, basil and olive oil. It is close in spirit to anchoiade.

Cooking estocaficada at home

You need a large container for the soak and a big, heavy casserole with a lid. Our recipe follows the label for 8 people. Halve it for 4.

Do the peppers like those in a salad of grilled peppers: grill them until the skin chars, then peel them. Deglaze the sauté pan with the tomatoes so the browned bits go into the stew. The label’s last piece of advice is the one to keep: moisten the fish with the broth as it cooks.

Check the pot every so often. The goal is a tender stew with enough sauce left to soak into the potatoes.

Serving

Serve estocaficada hot, straight from the casserole, with small jugs of olive oil on the table so each guest can add their own, as the label says. In the 1965 film the chef calls it a family dish that housewives prepare every Friday, and adds that it can be eaten in some restaurants. Sophie Brissaud also remembers eating it on Fridays.

Questions & answers

What if I can only find salt cod?

Salt cod is a different product. It is cod cured in salt, while stockfish is dried in wind with no salt at all, and the Italian importer Verrini gives different soaks for them, 3 to 4 days for salted fish against 8 to 10 days for fully dried stockfish. The Niçois sources we found all use stockfish, so we give no tested salt cod version.

Why does stockfish smell so strong?

Stockfish hangs outdoors for about three months, and Visit Lofoten describes that as a fermentation. Sophie Brissaud, who wrote about the dish in 2025, notes a funky smell from that light fermentation and a strong odour in the house for several days while it soaks. Notes de Cuisine says the smell is worth putting up with.

Is this the same as stocafi in Monaco?

The two are close. Monaco Pratique, an independent guide, describes stocafi as stockfish typically cooked with potatoes, tomatoes, olives and garlic, eaten in family homes and restaurants. We found no Monaco recipe we could check, so we do not compare methods.

Sources

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