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Boiled Haddock with Egg Sauce
Shred 2 ounces of beef suet very finely, and mix with it 4 ounces of finely grated bread crumbs, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful of thyme, and a shallot, finely minced; add a little pepper and salt, and a grate or two of nutmeg, and work all together with a raw egg. Fill the haddock with this stuffing, sew it up with strong thread, truss it in the shape of the letter S, and boil it in salt and water. When done, take it up, drain, and serve garnished with parsley. Boil 2 eggs for seven minutes. When cold, powder the yolks, and mix them with half a pint of good melted butter. Add the whites, cut up into small dice, boil up once, and serve in a tureen. Time to boil a good-sized haddock, half an hour. A haddock weighing two pounds is sufficient for three or four persons.
A stuffed whole haddock, poached rather than baked, with the Victorian "melted butter" sauce enriched with hard-boiled egg. Two things need translating: the sauce, and the cooking time.
- "Melted butter" is a sauce, not butterIn nineteenth-century English cookery melted butter means a thickened butter sauce — butter cooked with a little flour and let down with water or milk to pouring consistency; the proportions vary from book to book. Plain melted butter will separate and swamp the fish.
- Half a pintHalf a pint is 10 fl oz in imperial measure and 8 fl oz in American; the recipe does not say which is meant. Either way it is generous for a 2 lb fish; a cup is ample.
- Half an hour is far too longA 2 lb haddock poached for 30 minutes will be dry and shredding. Bring the salted water barely to a simmer, slide the fish in, and reckon about 10 minutes per inch of thickness at the shoulder — 12 to 15 minutes total for a stuffed 2 lb fish, until the flesh at the backbone is just opaque. Stuffing containing raw egg needs to reach 160F, so check the cavity with a thermometer rather than the clock.
- Beef suetFresh beef suet from a butcher is best; shredded packet suet works. Cold unsalted butter, coarsely grated, is a workable substitute at the same weight and gives a less waxy stuffing.
- Bread crumbsFour ounces of finely grated crumbs means dry crumbs from stale bread, not soft fresh ones — about a cup, loosely packed. Fresh crumbs will absorb more moisture and go pasty.
- Trussing in an SThe fish is curled head-to-tail and tied so it fits the pan and holds the stuffing. Sew the belly with kitchen twine and a trussing needle, then tie the curve loosely in two places. Snip the twine before serving.
- The eggsSeven minutes gives a set but not chalky yolk. Sieve the cold yolks rather than chopping them, so they thicken the sauce smoothly, and add the diced whites only at the end — "boil up once" means bring it back to a bare simmer and take it off, or the whites toughen.
- YieldThree to four as written. A larger fish, 3 to 4 lb, will serve six on the same quantity of stuffing increased by half.