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Broiled Finnan Haddie
Wash the fish thoroughly; lay in a dripping pan, flesh side down; cover with cold water and let soak one hour. Drain; cover with hot water, let soak fifteen minutes. Drain again and wipe dry; brush over with soft butter and broil fifteen minutes over a slow fire or some distance from the flame if cooked with gas. Remove to hot serving platter and spread with Maître d'Hôtel Butter.
A straightforward preparation whose whole success rests on managing salt and heat. Finnan haddie is cold-smoked and heavily salted in its traditional form, and this recipe's two soaks exist to draw that salt down before any heat touches the fish.
- The hinge: taste before you soakMost finnan haddie sold now is far less salty than the barrelled fish of 1900, and a full hour in cold water plus fifteen minutes in hot will leave it washed out and waterlogged. Break off a corner and taste it raw-cured; if it is only mildly salty, twenty to thirty minutes in cold water is enough, and skip the hot soak.
- Dripping panSimply a shallow rectangular roasting pan. Any low-sided pan or baking dish that holds the fillet flat will serve for the soaking.
- "Flesh side down"Finnan haddie is split and left on the skin, so the cut flesh faces up in the package. Laying it flesh down in the water puts the salt-bearing surface in contact with the liquid.
- Slow fire, or distance from the flameUnder a modern broiler this means the lowest rack, roughly 8 inches from the element, or the low setting if your broiler has one. Close, fierce heat scorches the smoked surface before the interior warms through.
- Fifteen minutes is too long for a thin filletA split fish an inch at the shoulder will take that; a supermarket fillet half an inch thick is done in 6 to 8 minutes, skin down, without turning. It is cooked when the flakes separate cleanly and an instant-read thermometer shows about 145F.
- Maître d'Hôtel ButterMa tre d'H el Butter -- Softened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice and pepper; it is classically seasoned with salt as well, though salt is worth omitting here, since the fish supplies plenty. Roll it in paper, chill, and cut coins to melt over the hot fish.
- What to buyLook for pale straw-coloured cold-smoked haddock, not the bright yellow dyed fillets, and not hot-smoked flakes, which are already fully cooked and will only dry out under a broiler.
- YieldReckon 6 to 8 ounces of soaked fish per person. A whole split finnan haddie of about 1½ lb serves three as a main course, four as part of a larger dinner.
Finnan haddie is generally said to take its name from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, though the Moray village of Findhorn has also long been claimed as the source; the fish is traced to the Scottish east-coast practice of splitting haddock, brining it and cold-smoking it. It travelled well, which is why it turns up in American cookbooks and hotel menus well inland: cured fish was one of the few reliable fish products a household far from the coast could buy. Its appearance under April in a book of Sunday dinners reflects the older calendar of Lenten and spring eating, when smoked and salted fish still stood in for fresh, and the pairing with ma tre d'h el butter shows the French hotel vocabulary that had by this date settled into American middle-class menus.