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Broiled Scrod
Scrod is young cod, may weigh from 2 1/2 to 5 lbs., the best weight 4 to 5 lbs. Clean and wipe as usual, cut down belly, remove backbone, place on hot greased broiler, sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook from 20 to 25 minutes. Remove to hot platter and spread with butter.
A whole split fish under the flame, which is a technique worth keeping even though the timing here belongs to a coal-fired broiler rather than a gas or electric one.
- What scrod isScrod is market shorthand for young cod, sometimes young haddock or pollock, split and boned for broiling. Ask the fish counter for a split, boned whole small cod, or substitute two thick skin-on cod loins.
- The cutCutting down the belly and lifting the backbone leaves a butterflied fish that lies flat, skin down, in one even sheet. Leave the skin on: it holds the flakes together and takes the direct heat that would otherwise dry the flesh.
- Broiler, then and nowThe broiler here may be a hinged wire grid over coals or the broiler compartment of a range; either way the fish takes fierce direct heat. A modern overhead broiler works, but set the rack about 6 inches from the element and preheat it fully, and grease the pan or rack as instructed or the skin will weld to it.
- The timingTwenty to twenty-five minutes will overcook a split fish under a modern broiler. A butterflied 4 to 5 lb scrod needs roughly 10 to 15 minutes skin down without turning; note that current food-safety guidance for fish is 145F at the thickest point, though many cooks pull it lower and let carryover finish it.
- SeasoningSalt and pepper go on before cooking, but salting a few minutes ahead firms the surface and helps it brown. The butter is added off the heat, on the hot platter, so it melts rather than burns.
- DonenessThe flesh should still be faintly translucent at the center when it leaves the heat; carryover finishes it. Fully opaque and firm on the platter means it is already past.
- YieldA 4 to 5 lb whole fish, boned, serves four to six. Lemon, or the melted butter alone, is the traditional accompaniment.
Scrod is a Boston word before it is a fish. The term is generally traced to the Dutch schrood, a piece cut off, though the derivation is not settled; by the nineteenth century it had settled in New England fish markets to mean a small cod, split and boned for the broiler, rather than any distinct species. Broiled scrod was a fixture on Boston hotel and dining-room menus, the Parker House among them.