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Haddock, with Poached Eggs
Grill a haddock (see HADDOCK, BROILED), lay it on a hot dish, put a little butter, salt, and pepper over, and arrange some nicely-poached eggs on the fish. Sprinkle a little finely-minced parsley over, and serve.
A two-line assembly that depends entirely on timing: the fish, the eggs and the plate all need to be hot at once. Everything else is seasoning.
- Which haddockVictorian cookery books grill both fresh and cured haddock, and the cross-referenced broiled haddock entry could be read either way. Smoked (finnan) haddock is the version that makes best sense of the butter and poached eggs; fresh fillets work but want more salt.
- Grill heatA hot grill, close in — about 4 inches from the element, 4 to 5 minutes a side for a split fish, less for fillets. It is done when the flesh parts from the bone and no longer looks translucent; internally that is around 145F.
- Salt with a light handIf the haddock is cured it carries a good deal of salt already. Taste a flake before seasoning, and consider poaching a heavily cured fish in milk for a few minutes first, then finishing under the grill.
- Poaching the eggsBarely simmering water with a splash of vinegar, three minutes for a soft yolk. The yolk running into the buttered fish is the point of the dish, so do not let them firm up.
- Order of workPoach the eggs first and hold them in warm water while the fish grills; drain each on a cloth before it goes on the fish, or the plate floods.
- The butter"A little butter" means a knob melting into the hot fish, not a sauce. Half an ounce, about a tablespoon, for a fish serving two.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantities; on the assumption of one good haddock of about 1 lb with two eggs, it will feed two at breakfast or supper, with brown bread and butter.
Grilled haddock under a poached egg is a breakfast and high-tea dish of the British Isles, resting on the east-coast trade in cured haddock — the Aberdeenshire finnan, cold-smoked and pale gold, reached English tables in quantity once the railways could move it overnight. The same book gives broiled haddock its own heading and expects the reader to turn back to it. The pairing of smoked fish with egg runs right through Victorian breakfast cookery, from kedgeree to omelettes filled with flaked haddock, and something very like it still appears on British hotel breakfast menus.