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Broiled Finnan Haddie
Put a haddie between the greased wires of a broiler and brown on both sides. Put in a pan, cover with hot water, allow it to stand ten minutes, then drain and put on a platter. Spread with butter and dust with pepper.
A three-line method that assumes you know what finnan haddie is and that it arrives whole, bone-in, and heavily salted. Both assumptions need adjusting.
- What a haddie isFinnan haddie is haddock that has been split, brined and cold-smoked, so it is cured but not cooked. Modern vacuum-packed fillets are generally more lightly salted than the fish this recipe assumes, which is why the soaking step below matters less than it once did.
- The hot-water stand is a de-salting stepCovering the browned fish with hot water for ten minutes draws out salt and softens the dense cured flesh. With today's mild cure, five minutes is usually enough; taste a flake before committing, because an over-soaked fillet turns watery and bland.
- Broil second, soak first, if you preferSome modern treatments reverse the order — soak or poach in milk, then finish under the broiler — which may give better browning, since the original method browns a dry salt surface before the water goes over it.
- Heat level"Brown on both sides" implies a hot broiler with the fish set close to the heat. A fillet needs about 3 to 4 minutes a side; a whole split haddie somewhat longer. Cook until it flakes, no further.
- The greased wire broilerA hinged wire broiler held the fish so it could be flipped over coals or under a gas grill. A well-oiled rack set over a sheet pan does the same job; smoked fish skin sticks badly, so oil generously.
- Skin and bonesA traditional haddie is split with the backbone in. Run a finger over the fillet before serving and pull the pin bones with pliers, and lift the skin off after cooking, when it comes away cleanly.
- YieldOne whole haddie of about 1.5 lb serves three or four at breakfast or as a light supper. Butter and pepper are the whole seasoning here — no salt, and a squeeze of lemon is not out of place.
Finnan haddie takes its name, by the usual account, from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, where haddock was traditionally split and smoked over peat or hardwood — though the derivation is contested, with Findhorn in Moray also claimed; the Scots pronunciation gave English cookbooks "finnan" and "finnen" more or less interchangeably. The cure travelled well, and by the late nineteenth century American East Coast smokehouses were turning out their own version, which is why a household book of the period could treat it as an everyday breakfast fish rather than an import. Its place in the fish chapter reflects a period when preserved fish was a normal weekday protein and the cook's real problem was not flavour but salt — hence the ten-minute stand in hot water.