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Broiled Finnan-Haddie
Cut the finnan-haddie into small squares, skin and parboil them. Wipe the squares of fish until they are dry, place on a buttered grid-iron, and broil until they are highly browned. Lay the fish on a hot platter and put a small piece of butter on each square. Garnish with slices of lemon.
A short method that depends entirely on the fish being dry before it meets the heat. Finnan haddie is cold-smoked and salted, so the parboil is a de-salting step as much as a cooking one.
- What finnan haddie isCold-smoked haddock, split and cured, traditionally pale gold rather than the bright yellow of dyed smoked fillets. It is fully cured but not cooked, and it is salty enough that rinsing or a brief soak matters.
- The parboilThe recipe gives no liquid or timing. Water or milk, brought barely to a simmer for a few minutes, is the usual modern reading: enough to draw out salt and loosen the flesh, not to cook it through. A hard boil will break the flakes apart before they ever reach the grid.
- Dry the fish properlyThis is the hinge of the recipe. Damp fish steams under the broiler and refuses to brown, and the surface tears when you turn it. Blot each piece on both sides and let it sit a few minutes in the air.
- Grid-iron equals broilerA grid-iron sat over coals with the food a couple of inches from the heat. Use an oven broiler on high with the rack 3 to 4 inches below the element, or a stovetop grill pan. Butter the bars or the grate itself, not just the fish.
- TimingA few minutes a side is usually enough for small parboiled squares; go by colour rather than the clock. 'Highly browned' in the original means well coloured at the edges, not scorched through; smoked haddock dries out fast once it passes that point.
- Skin and bonesThe instruction to skin comes first for a reason. Pull the skin while the fish is still cool and firm, and run a finger along the flesh for the row of pin bones that split haddock usually retains.
- Butter and lemonThe butter placed on the hot fish is the whole sauce, so use a good one and let it melt at the table. The lemon is called a garnish, but the acid also cuts the smoke and the salt.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantity. As a rough modern allowance, 5 to 6 oz of finnan haddie per person for a main course, half that for a breakfast or supper dish.
Finnan haddie is generally 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 usually traced to the Scottish northeast in the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, when haddock were split, brined and smoked over peat and wood. It travelled well, which is why it turns up in American and English household books far from Scotland, usually creamed, poached in milk, or broiled as here. Broiling with butter and lemon is the plainest treatment in the repertoire, and the one that shows off the cure rather than hiding it in a sauce.