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Findon Haddocks on Toast
Plunge a haddock into boiling water for five or six minutes, strip off all the meat, mince it finely, then put it into a stewpan with one ounce of butter and plenty of pepper. Let it get thoroughly hot, then spread it on rounds of hot buttered toast.
A two-minute savoury that depends entirely on buying the right fish. Everything else is butter, pepper and heat.
- "Findon" haddockA spelling of Finnan haddie, the cold-smoked split haddock associated with Findon in Aberdeenshire. Buy undyed cold-smoked haddock on the bone if you can; the bright yellow dyed fillets are a different, saltier product and will taste harsher here.
- Do not oversaltThe recipe calls for no salt at all, and that is deliberate — the cure supplies it. Taste before you reach for the salt cellar, and if the fish is very salty give it half an hour in cold water before cooking.
- Five or six minutes is for a whole fishA split haddock on the bone will take that long in barely simmering water. A boneless fillet of half a pound is done in three minutes, and boiled hard it goes dry and stringy. Pull it out when it flakes.
- Poach in milk if you preferThe recipe uses plain water. Milk or a milk-and-water mix softens the smoke and gives you a little liquid to loosen the mince if it looks dry in the pan.
- StewpanAny small heavy saucepan. Keep the heat low once the fish is in with the butter — you are warming it through, not frying it, and the aim is a spreadable paste rather than a browned hash.
- One ounce of butterTwo tablespoons, and that is per haddock rather than per slice of toast. A spoonful of cream or a beaten egg yolk stirred in off the heat is one way to hold the mince together on the toast.
- Bones and skinSmoked haddock is full of fine pin bones. Strip the meat while it is still warm, working with your fingers, and discard skin and bones before mincing.
- YieldOne good-sized haddock gives enough for six to eight rounds of toast — a savoury course or a light supper for two to three. Assemble at the last moment or the toast goes limp.
Finnan haddock takes its name from a fishing village on the Aberdeenshire coast — usually given as Findon, south of Aberdeen, though Findhorn on the Moray Firth has also long been claimed — where haddock were split, lightly salted and cold-smoked over peat or hardwood. By the middle of the nineteenth century the railways were carrying them south in quantity, and Finnan haddie became a fixture of the British breakfast and supper table, poached in milk, made into kedgeree, or minced onto toast as here. That last form belongs to the Victorian savoury: a small, hot, strongly flavoured mouthful served at the end of dinner after the sweet, or as a late supper dish.