Baked Haddock
Buy a haddock weighing about three pounds. Have the head and tail left on the fish and have it opened underneath for the stuffing, which is made as follows: One cup of cracker crumbs, one saltspoon of salt, one teaspoon of chopped onion, one saltspoon of pepper, one teaspoon of chopped parsley, one teaspoon of chopped pickles, one-fourth cup of butter. This makes a dry, crumbling stuffing. Stuff the fish, sew it up, place two strips of white cotton cloth across the baking pan, stand the fish erect upon the cloth, in the shape of the letter S.
Place strips of salt pork on the fish, dredge with flour and baste often with the pork fat. Bake till brown. Remove from the pan by lifting with the strips of cotton. Place upright on a platter.
Stick stems of parsley or the ends of celery in the eyes and mouth, garnish with sliced lemon and serve with Hollandaise sauce.
A whole stuffed haddock, baked upright for the table — the technique is sound, but the original leaves out the oven temperature and the time, which is where most of the guesswork lies.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. The stuffing therefore takes about 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper for a cup of crumbs, which is light; season to taste, remembering the salt pork on top adds more.
- Oven and timeThe original gives neither temperature nor time. A moderately hot oven, around 400F, works: a 3 lb stuffed whole fish needs roughly 35 to 45 minutes; go by internal temperature at the thickest part behind the head, 145F, rather than by browning alone. "Bake till brown" refers to the floured, pork-basted skin, which colours well before the interior is done.
- Cracker crumbsPlain unsalted soda crackers or common crackers, crushed but not powdered — not seasoned breadcrumbs, and not panko, which absorbs fat differently. The "dry, crumbling" texture is intentional; it soaks up the fish juices instead of turning to paste.
- Chopped picklesCucumber pickle, and in this period most likely a sharp, unsweetened one. Dill pickle or cornichon suits the dish better than modern bread-and-butter pickle.
- Salt porkThin sheets of salt pork laid over the fish are both fat and self-basting cover. Blanched thick-cut bacon or thinly sliced pancetta works; if you use nothing, brush generously with butter and baste every ten minutes, since haddock is lean and dries quickly.
- The cloth slingsTwo strips of clean white cotton under the fish let you lift a cooked whole fish without breaking it. Doubled parchment strips or foil folded into bands do the same job. This is the instruction that decides whether the dish reaches the platter intact.
- Standing it in an SThe fish is curved and propped on its belly, tail bent one way and head the other, then held with the sewn seam down and skewers or twine as needed. It will slump unless the cavity is fully packed and the body braced against the pan sides.
- Buying the fishAsk for a whole 3 lb haddock, gutted through the belly, head and tail on, and the belly opened out enough to take the stuffing. Kitchen twine and a trussing needle replace the sewing thread.
- YieldA 3 lb whole fish serves four as a main course. Hollandaise made from three egg yolks and a stick of butter is ample for that number.
Baked stuffed haddock with a cracker crumb filling is New England household cooking, and the cracker crumbs are the tell: soda and common crackers were a pantry staple along the Atlantic coast long before packaged breadcrumbs, and they turn up in everything from fish stuffing to scalloped oysters and clam pie. Haddock was one of the great cheap ground-fish of the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, landed in quantity and sold whole, which is why a cook of this period could be told simply to buy a three-pound fish rather than a fillet. The presentation — flowers, stems set in the eyes and mouth, lemon around the platter — reflects a taste for serving fish visibly whole. Hollandaise alongside marks the dish as company food rather than a weeknight supper.