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Baked Haddocks
Take all the trimmings of two good sized had-docks, cover them with milk and water, and put them to simmer. Add chopped parsley, a chopped shallot, pepper and salt. Cut each fish in half across, and lay them in the bottom of a pie dish, sprinkle breadcrumbs, pats of butter, pepper and salt, between and on each piece. Fill up the dish with water or milk, adding the simmered and strained liquor from the trimmings. Bake gently for an hour, and when brown on top add more breadcrumbs, and pats of butter.
A plain baked fish supper that leans entirely on the stock made from the trimmings. Two things need adjusting: the liquid level and the hour in the oven.
- The hinge is the liquorThe whole point of simmering the heads, bones and skin in milk and water is to get a flavoured broth. Simmer 15-20 minutes, no longer, strain it, and reduce it if it tastes thin. If you skip this step and use plain milk you have a bland dish.
- Do not fill the dish up"Fill up the dish" will poach the fish rather than bake it and wash the crumb topping away. Pour in enough liquor to come a third of the way up the fish, so the top stays dry enough to brown.
- "Bake gently" and the hourThe book gives no temperature; "gently" points to a moderate-to-slow oven, and something in the region of 325F is a reasonable modern reading rather than an equivalent the book states. An hour is long for haddock: halved haddock on the bone needs roughly 25-35 minutes at that heat, or until the flesh parts from the backbone; boneless portions, 18-20 minutes. Check at 20 and work from there.
- Pie dishAn ordinary shallow oval or rectangular baking dish, glass or earthenware, about 2 inches deep. Nothing to do with pastry.
- Cut each fish in half acrossThis assumes small whole haddocks, gutted and headed, cut into two thick sections. Two fish of about 1 1/2 lb each, or four 6-8 oz fillets, will do the same work.
- Shallot and parsleyOne shallot for two fish is restrained; two is closer to modern taste. As the recipe is written they appear to go into the trimmings pot rather than into the dish, in which case most of them will be caught when the liquor is strained.
- The second crumbingAdding fresh crumbs and butter once the top has browned is a way of building a thicker crust. Run the dish under the broiler for a minute or two at the end instead of returning it to a slow oven, which risks overcooking the fish.
- YieldTwo good-sized haddocks serve four generously with boiled potatoes.
The Belgian Cook Book was assembled by Mrs. Brian Luck in 1915 from recipes collected from Belgian refugees who had fled to Britain after the German invasion, and the proceeds are said to have gone to relief work. The fish is North Sea haddock, the vessel is an English pie dish, and the seasoning is the parsley-and-shallot pairing familiar in both kitchens. Building a stock from trimmings and then baking the fish in it is old thrift, of a piece with the cheap white fish cookery of the period.