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Findon Haddocks, Fried
Rub butter or oil on both sides of the fish, and put it into a frying-pan smeared with either. Shake the pan over a clear fire. In three or four minutes the fish will be sufficiently done. Serve hot, with a little more butter rubbed over. Probable cost, 6d. to 1s.
A three-line Victorian breakfast dish that depends entirely on the fish being a proper cold-smoked haddock. Everything here turns on brevity.
- What "Findon" meansFindon (Finnan) haddock is haddock split, lightly brined and cold-smoked — sold today as finnan haddie, or, at a pinch, an undyed smoked haddock fillet. It is cured but raw, so it does need cooking; the bright yellow dyed fillets are a different, wetter product and will steam rather than fry.
- Three or four minutes is rightA split finnan is thin, and the cure has already firmed the flesh. Skin-side down first for two minutes, then a minute or two on the flesh side, until it flakes at the thickest point. A thick loin fillet may want six or seven minutes total, but longer than that dries it to string.
- "A clear fire"Meaning a fire burnt down past smoke and flame to steady red heat — medium to medium-high on a modern burner. Too hot and the salt-firmed surface scorches before the centre sets.
- Check the salt firstCures varied enormously and some traditional finnan is very salty. Cook and taste a small corner first rather than tasting the raw flesh; if it is too salty, a 20-minute soak in cold water or milk before drying and frying brings it back into range. No soaking is needed for most modern lightly cured fillets.
- The butter, twiceThe rubbing of butter before and after is not decoration — smoked haddock is lean and the finishing butter melts into the flakes to make the sauce. Use good butter and be generous; the recipe names nothing else alongside it.
- Pan choice"Smeared" means barely greased, which works in cast iron or a heavy nonstick pan but will glue the fish to thin stainless steel. Shaking the pan, as instructed, keeps it loose.
- Yield and servingOne split fish or two fillets serves two at breakfast. It was often eaten with a poached egg, brown bread and tea; boiled potatoes turn it into supper.
- The cost noteThe "probable cost" is the cost of making the dish, which here is simply the fish — a marker that smoked haddock was an unremarkable, modestly priced item rather than a luxury.
Finnan haddock is usually said to take its name from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, though a derivation from Findhorn on the Moray Firth is also claimed; the cure is generally traced to the north-east Scottish coast, where split haddock were salted and cold-smoked over peat or hardwood. Once the railways reached Aberdeen in the mid-nineteenth century the fish could travel south overnight, and finnan haddie became a fixture of the English breakfast table and the club and hotel menu alike — which is why a London compendium like Cassell's treats it as a matter of course. The recipe belongs to a whole family of Victorian breakfast fish dishes, alongside kippers, bloaters and kedgeree, all of them built on preserved fish that needed no more than a few minutes' heat and a knob of butter.