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Baked Finnan Haddie
Put a haddie in a spider, pour over it half a cup of milk and half a cup of water and put at the back of the range, where it will heat slowly. Let it stand for half an hour, just barely reaching the simmering point, pour off the liquid, spread with butter and bake twenty-five minutes in a hot oven.
A two-stage method: a slow soak in milk and water to soften and de-salt the smoked fish, then a short spell in the oven to brown the butter. The soak is the part that matters.
- What a haddie isFinnan haddie is cold-smoked haddock, split and bone-in, traditionally sold whole. Look for undyed smoked haddock fillets, about 1 to 1 1/2 lb, which will feed three or four.
- SpiderA spider was a cast-iron frying pan, originally footed to stand over coals. Use a heavy oven-safe skillet or a shallow flameproof gratin dish so the fish can go from stovetop soak to oven without moving.
- "Back of the range"The cool end of a wood or coal range, where the liquid sits just short of a simmer. On a modern stove use the lowest setting, or set the pan in a low oven of about 200F; the liquid should steam and shiver, never bubble.
- Half a cup eachA cup here is 8 fl oz, so 4 oz milk and 4 oz water. That is barely enough to come up the sides of a modern fillet; add equal parts milk and water until the fish is about half submerged, and turn it once.
- Hot ovenRoughly 400 to 450F. At that heat 25 minutes will dry out a fillet that has already spent half an hour heating through. Ten to twelve minutes is enough to set the butter and colour the surface; the fish is done when it flakes at the thickest point.
- SaltinessSmoked haddock varies a great deal. Taste a corner of the poaching liquid after twenty minutes; if it is aggressively salty, pour it off, replace it with fresh milk and water, and give it another ten minutes before baking.
- ButterUse a generous 2 to 3 tablespoons, softened, spread over the flesh side. Some cooks add pepper and a squeeze of lemon at the table, though the original leaves the fish plain.
- ServingTraditionally breakfast or supper, with boiled or mashed potatoes. Any leftover fish flakes well into kedgeree or fish cakes.
Finnan haddie is generally said to take its name from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, where haddock were split and cold-smoked over peat and hardwood, though Findhorn has also been proposed as the source; the fish was well established in the Scottish trade by the early nineteenth century and travelled to American cities as railways and refrigerated shipping improved. Because it keeps far longer than fresh haddock, it became a standard breakfast fish, which is why an American housekeeping manual can print a recipe this brief and assume the reader knows what a haddie is. The slow soak in milk and water is a traditional handling for hard-cured smoked fish: it draws out salt and rehydrates flesh that the smokehouse has deliberately dried.