Home › The Principles of Cookery › HADDOCK, BROILED (another way)
HADDOCK, BROILED (another way)
An easier way of broiling haddock is to partially cook it in a Dutch oven before a clear fire, and when the skin rises brush it over with egg, strew bread-crumbs, dredge flour on it, and broil it as before. When browned it is done enough. Put a small lump of butter on the dish once or twice during the operation. It is more easily kept whole when cooked in this way. Time, altogether, half an hour. Probable cost, 9d. and upwards. Sufficient for two or three persons.
This is a shortcut method for a whole fish: set it before the fire until the skin loosens, then coat and finish over direct heat. Translated to a modern kitchen it becomes oven-then-broiler, which is exactly how you would keep a large fillet or whole fish from falling apart today.
- "Dutch oven" here is not a potIn this period a Dutch oven was a hooded tin reflector set on the hearth, open at the back, that bounced fire heat onto the food. The recipe gives no temperature; for that first stage a hot oven, or a moderately close position under a grill/broiler element, is the nearest modern equivalent.
- "Broil" means the gridironVictorian broiling is cooking over glowing coals on a grid, not under an overhead element. Either a grill pan over high heat or a broiler will do for the finishing browning; the point is direct radiant heat to set and colour the crumbs.
- The hinge: wait for the skin to liftThe coating goes on only once the skin rises, as the recipe directs; a drier surface takes egg and crumbs better. The partial cooking first is what holds the fish together, which the recipe itself gives as the reason for the method.
- Egg, crumbs, flourBrush with beaten whole egg, press on dry white breadcrumbs, then a light dredge of flour to dry the surface so it browns rather than steams. Fine dried crumbs behave better than fresh, which scorch.
- Which haddockThis is most likely fresh haddock rather than the smoked finnan that Victorian books also call haddock. The recipe gives no weight; a whole fish of about a pound and a half to two pounds, or two thick fillets, would suit the stated yield of two or three persons.
- Timing and donenessHalf an hour total is reasonable for a whole fish of that size but generous for fillets, which need far less. Judge by the flesh turning opaque and parting from the bone, or 145F at the thickest point; the recipe's "when browned it is done enough" applies only to the finishing stage.
- The butter on the dishThe recipe's "small lump of butter on the dish once or twice during the operation" is not explained in the text; most plausibly it kept the fish moist and glossy as it cooked. A warmed plate with a knob of butter, or a squeeze of lemon, does the same job at the table.
- Cost and yield"9d. and upwards" is nine old pence, a price signal for the Victorian housekeeper and of no use as a conversion. Serves two to three as a main course.
Haddock was one of the cheap, plentiful white fish of the British table, landed in quantity along the North Sea coast and carried inland by rail by the time Cassell's was compiled, which is why a dictionary of cookery can offer several methods for it and quote a price in pence. The technique here belongs to the open-hearth kitchen: the reflector oven, generally called a Dutch oven in English households, stood on the hearthstone and cooked by radiant heat while the gridiron handled the browning over coals. Egg-and-crumb coating was standard Victorian insurance for delicate fish, and the note that the fish "is more easily kept whole when cooked in this way" is the honest reason the variation was recorded at all: whole haddock broiled from raw tends to break up when turned.