Saltfish is a quality product, but the image of saltfish among Icelanders has been under attack. Matís, in collaboration with Icelandic, Norwegian and Faroese experts in saltfish processing and quality, cooking, food production, communication and the travel industry, has dedicated the month of March 2024 to saltfish. It is the hope of the project's relatives that the image of saltfish will be turned around because it is important that saltfish is part of our Icelandic food culture, we know it and that we are proud of it.
The Saltfish delicacies project was launched in 2022 and aimed to strengthen the position of saltfish in the domestic market. A workshop organized by the food company clearly revealed that the salted fish has endless possibilities when it comes to the preparation of dishes, and the possibilities are truly there. However, the image that saltfish seems to have here in Iceland needs to be changed, so that saltfish is or should be surf salt. Properly drained salted fish should not really be very salty, it should just have a faint salty taste. It has also been observed that (light/night) salted fish is sold as salted fish, but these are completely different products.
Properly watered salted fish has a characteristic flavor, even reminiscent of butter, and the texture of the fish is firm. The aforementioned workshop was very successful, and it featured a number of ideas on how to support the image that salted fish is truly a gourmet product.
In the sequel, emphasis was placed on the development of prepared dishes and recipes based on traditional dehydrated salt fish. We worked from the point of view of making it easier for consumers to prepare salted fish delicacies without much effort.
Now in the month of March, saltfish month has been launched in collaboration with Krónuna, which will offer for sale ready-made dishes made from dehydrated saltfish and dehydrated saltfish from chef Grími, which is the result of this work. The products are available in Krónun Lindum, Grandi, Flatahrauni, Bíldshöfði, Skeifun, Mosfellsbær, Selfoss, Akureyri and in Vestmannaey.
A wide variety of information and recipes for delicious salted fish dishes can be found on the project page here: Salted fish delicacies