Fish & Brewis - Traditional Newfoundland
Hi and welcome to our website!
I guess you are looking for a recipe for fish and brewis.
If so look no further, I have a delicious recipe here plus a step by step video tutorial on how to make fish and brewis.
So sit back a make yourself a snack and cup of tea and start the video 🙂 Enjoy
Fish and Brewis is a meal made up of salt cod, hard bread, potatoes, onions and savoury. Mixed together and topped with fried onions and fat pork, called scrunchions.  Some people will have a big slice of sweet molasses homemade bread and a cup of  steeped black tea.
This is just a quick recipe for making fish and Brewis.
This is a link to another delicious meal you can make with hard bread, moose and Brewis.
Traditional Newfoundland Moose & Brewis
Left over fish and Brewis are made into fish cakes, another link to this delicious meal.
Traditional Newfoundland Fish Cakes
Traditional Newfoundland Toutons and Frozies
Traditional Newfoundland Sweet Molasses Raisin Bread
These are the other links to food traditionally served with Fish and Brewis. I also have a recipe for homemade hard bread.
Traditional Newfoundland Homemade Hard Bread
Thank you for visiting our website and I have many more delicious Traditional Newfoundland and Labrador meals here!
I'm going to share a link to our cookbooks!
https://www.bonitaskitchen.com/cookbook
Ingredients
- Salt Cod fish - 1 lb boneless or more
- Onions - 2 Medium, peeled and chopped
- Potatoes - 4 Medium, peeled
- Salt fat Pork - 1 Piece about 1/4 Cup
- Hard Bread - 2 Pieces
- Butter - 2 tbsp
- Pepper - Pinch
- Sea salt - Pinch
Instructions
1 - Soak over night in separate bowls your salt cod fish and hard bread, drain water from both before adding to saucepan.
2 - In a medium saucepan add water and start the boil on your potatoes about 15 minutes or fork tender, in a frying pan start frying your pieces of fat pork, butter or fatty bacon. When your fat pork starts to fry add your chopped onions continue frying until golden brown.
3 - In another saucepan add water and start your salt cod fish boiling for 10 to 15 minutes, then when your potatoes have boiled remove them from the pot and scoop into a bowl keeping the water for hard bread.
4 - Before adding soaked hard bread to the potato water, drain water from the soaked hard bread, then add hard bread to potato hot water and turn off the heat keep soaked hard bread in HOT water for 5 to 15 minutes or until ready to use.
5- Only use boneless salt cod, when salt cod fish have cooked remove from saucepan and flake apart, now this is when you start to add everything together, potatoes, fish, hard bread, fried onions and fat pork or bacon, salt and pepper to taste, fold everything together then serve.
This is just a quick recipe for making fish and Brewis.
In Newfoundland and Labrador on Christmas Eve, most everyone made this on Christmas Eve.
This was a old tradition that have been forgotten over our generations, hopefully we can keep it alive by making this dish our house old favourite.
Allergens
I love fish and brews and everyone makes it a little different to meet their needs, I like the fried up fat pork crispy and lots of butter with fried onions to pour over the top of my fish and brewis. My husband likes the fish cakes from the fish and brewis, haha I believe it’s the same only one is fried in patties. 🙂 Whatever way you enjoy this delicious meal it will be lovely.
I will share with you a link to our delicious bread
Traditional Newfoundland Sweet Molasses Raisin Bread Â
These bread is the best thing ever to have with your fish and brewis meal, some how it goes together.
Then fish and Brewis topped off with scrunchions and fried onions, Scrunchions is fat pork fried until crispy.
Then poured over your meal to bring this delicious fish and brewis to another level of goodness.
So many wonderful meals you can make with salted fish but by far this one must be my favourite, I also love fish cakes and they are pretty much the left overs from your fish and potatoes, mashed together and formed into patties.
I will share the link to my homemade fish cakes recipe for you to enjoy.
Traditional Newfoundland Fish Cakes
Sometimes I like serving fish and Brewis with a couple of toutons now what a lovely way to enjoy a delicious meal.
……..and I’m going to share another link for homemade toutons so you can have easy access to these delicious recipes.
Traditional Newfoundland Toutons and Frozies
Newfoundland History:
Years ago fish and Brewis was a very popular meal, cod fish was plentiful fishermen and most Newfoundland and Labrador people would salt their cod fish to keep for the winter months and it was easy to store this way. The same goes for hard bread you can have bags of them and it would never go bad.
Hard bread, also known as Hard Tack, is a firm biscuit baked in a time honoured tradition to create its unique texture. This type of biscuit was onced used by sailors to replace bread, owing to its long shelf life. Hard Bread is predominantly used to prepare traditional Fish and Brewis, but is also used with other dishes such as wild game and bacon, or on its own as a snack or bread puddings.
Traditional Newfoundland Homemade Hard Bread
This is my recipe for hard bread just incase you can’t find any in the stores to buy you can make your own to enjoy whenever you need it.
You can soak it over night to use the next day or soak it early in the morning to use for making supper. I can remember years ago making just hard bread warmed with butter and sugar over the top it was so tasty.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and visit our website, from our kitchen to yours, on behalf of myself, Raymond and our Team…. have a wonderful day.
Fantastic ! I’m trying my 1 st homemade hard tack tonight. Everything is soaking and I am so looking forward to this ! I don’t have access to any hard tack in Stettler, Alberta so I am sooo happy that I found you on here.
Hi Katharyn: Thank you for your message and for visiting my website, i’m so glad you found us too. This recipe is a life saver when you don’t have access to something so small but is so needed to make fish and brewis. This way you can make it when you need it, if its warm in your house the hard bread don’t have the same shelf life. But you can freeze them or just make more only a couple of ingredients in this recipe. Enjoy Bonita
HI Bomita,
Can you freeze leftover fisn’n Brewis?
Hi KiM: Thank you for your message and for visiting my website, you can freeze fish and brewis and you also can make fish cakes from them as well, I have a recipe on the website if you are interested. Enjoy Bonita
For first time I am making fish and brews looking forward to it turning out good We love jigs dinnerrso am sure we will like this
Hi Gayle: Thank you for your message and for visiting my website, I’m glad you enjoyed my jiggs dinner recipe. You will do great with the fish and brewis this is a lovely recipe and meal. Enjoy Bonita
Thanks Bonita,that is like me mum’s recipe,I will be making it.I have been looking for a good recipe for a long time.Now I have found one.Many thanks.
Mel Delaney
Belmont,Nova Scotia.
Hi Mel: Thank you for your message and for stopping by, we are so glad to help. This is a easy old fashion recipe and they make great left overs too. Have a wonderful day and enjoy to the fullest. 🙂 Bonita
Thank you for posting this. It reminds me of my Newfoundland childhood.
Tessa, California
Hi Tessa: You are very welcome and thank you so much for stopping by and letting us know where you are from. This meal was made often years ago here in Newfoundland and Labrador, I still love to make if for a special meal when we have company from away. I hope you are keeping safe and thank you once again for leaving a message. Have a wonderful weekend 🙂 Bonita
I’m from the coast of VA and while I’ve never heard of this dish it’s amazingly similar to the fried salmon patties my momma would make using canned salmon. We call salt pork fatback and she would fry it crispy and make the best gravy from the drippings. We’d eat the fatback like bacon with fried eggs, biscuits and the fatback gravy. Even thousands of miles apart we still have things in common ?
Hi Tracy: Thank you for your lovely message and for stopping by, I’m glad you enjoyed our fish and brewis recipe. This is a old traditional meal our elders would make often here years ago, salmon cakes sounds lovely, I have crab cakes on here and they are lovely. Its nice to know that our cultural foods are very similar and so tasty. Thank you one again for finding our website and enjoying our channel, we have over 250 recipes and videos you can check out and make. 🙂 Bonita
Hi Bonita! We visited NL last year and we loved the fish and brewis we had there. I haven’t been able to find any salt cod where I shop so I was wondering how much salt would you recommend to add to water to boil the fresh cod in and for how long?
Hi Drew: Thank you for your message and for stopping by, I’m so glad you found our recipe and you are going make it. If you don’t have salted cod fish, just add your fresh cod fillets to a saucepan of hot water with about 1 tbsp of sea salt. Boil on a medium heat for only 5 minutes just to cook the cod a little, not over cook. Then after follow the recipe for mixing everything together. The amount of cod depends on how much you would like in your Fish and Brewis. Enjoy to the fullest and thank you 🙂 Bonita
This is fishermen’s brewis because it’s mixed together. Fish and brewis is when the fish and hard bread is separated
Hi Stephanie: Thank you for your message and for stopping by, as a kid living by the ocean in a fishing community. I was always told that the reason its called fisherman’s brewis is because when the fisherman was out on the water and gone for days, they would have the salted fish, hard bread ( hard tack ) and potatoes with them of course and they would cook everything together and drain the water off and dump out into a plater or big bowl and they called it fisherman’s brewis. We have always called the mixed fish and brewis but I guess everyone got their own spin on that one for sure. But thank you for sharing with us yours and taking the time to send us a message. I hope you enjoy our channel and please share any of our videos with your family to enjoy. 🙂 Stay safe…… Bonita
I really enjoy your site. Every time I want a receipt I go into your site because everything is made so simple and the food is delicious. I am not that good of a cook but when I use your receipts you would say that I was a chef.
Hi Don: That is so sweet and I’m glad to help you, its nice to know you are enjoying our channel and thank you for taking the time to leave a message. Enjoy to the fullest. 🙂 Bonita
Dear Bonita, I did my internship at St John’s 50 years ago. Often had the opportunity to empty the cod nets with my fisherman friends from Portugal Cove. I was introduced to fish and brewis back then when cod was plentiful. Thank you for your recipe for hard bread, can’t find it in Texas. But cod from Iceland is available. Your fish and brewis recipe is delicious. Thank you so much. Hope to visit NL again when Covid is gone.
Don Sprague
Hi Don: You are very welcome and thank you so much for sharing your wonderful story with us and for making the recipe for hard bread and fish and brewis. Having these recipes available for you and your family to enjoy in Texas makes us so happy. I hope you do get to visit NL again and we also hope COVID goes soon! Stay safe and god bless. 🙂 Bonita
Dear Bonita, I spent many summers in Newfoundland as a kid and we would have Fisherman’s Brewis on the beach over an open fire every Sunday after church. I just made your recipe for our book club in honour of the book I had chosen (Random Passage) and everyone loved it. Thank you and I will be sure to try additional recipes on your website.
Hi Margaret: Thank you so much for your lovely message and for stopping by, thank you for sharing your childhood story with us. I’ve heard so many stories from people that have made this meal on the shore side on a rock. I’m so glad you are enjoying our channel and visit anytime you are looking for a recipe. 🙂 Bonita
How many cakes of hard bread do I need for 7 people ? Thanks in advance for your reply
Hi June and thank you so much for your message and for stopping by, 4 cakes of hard bread should be enough. Hard bread when soaked and warmed can be used for two people and maybe three depending on how much they would like to have. But 4 pieces of hard bread would be enough, enjoy to the fullest and thank you. 🙂 Bonita
Hi. Loves your recipes! Is there any way to quick soak the hard bread?
Hi Janet, Thank you for your question and for stopping by, you can try to place them in hot water for an hour but not boiling. See if that would speed up the bread to open, but usually over night of a few hours works best. Enjoy your fish and brewis and thank you for stopping by. 🙂 Bonita
I am planning on making Fish and Brewis tonight…tried it for the first time in Sept. 2022…moved my son and family to Rocky Harbour Newfound and the people there are so hospitable…we are going back in June 2023…love the traditional food, will be making other things…looks like an easy recipe to follow..
Hi Debbie, Thank you for your message and for stopping by, I’m so glad you tired the fish and brewis recipe on your visit to NL. I hope you get to make it soon and enjoy to the fullest.
🙂 Bonita
Hi, I saw your recipe for fish and brewis. I made the dish tonight and talking to people at the church about the meal. I have been eating and enjoying this meal, and Jig’s dinner, and mustard pickles, and touton for decades. My mother was born and raised in Kelligrews, NFLD. and I have visited there many times to visit my aunts, uncles and cousins. I have eaten other foods from the various type of berries that grow in the area. The only meal that is not on my favorite list is moose. I have a cousin that made me a moose steak dinner and I was not use to the wild taste of the meat. I talk to people about Newfoundland a lot and encourage them to visit the area. there is a lot of beauty on the island. take care and eat hardy and have a very Merry Christmas.
Hi Bill: Thank you so much for your lovely message and for sharing your beautiful story about home. I’m so glad you made our fish and brewis recipe and thank you for sharing with your church friends about it. Oh my it’s always nice to know where our viewers are from or their families. Kelligrews is a beautiful place and we have friends living there and we visit lots. I agree with your moose story….it do have a game taste and you like it or you don’t. I’m not a lover of it but Raymond do enjoy and meal or two. Like in a stew or soup…not a steak it’s to tuff for that.All the best and thank you once again…Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.
Bonita, Raymond and Team!!!