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Baked Haddock with Oyster Stuffing
Remove skin, head, and tail from a four-pound haddock. Bone, leaving in large bones near head, to keep fillets in shape of the original fish. Sprinkle with salt, and brush over with lemon juice. Lay one fillet on greased fish-sheet in a dripping-pan, cover thickly with oysters, cleaned and dipped in buttered cracker crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper. Cover oysters with other fillet, brush with egg slightly beaten, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake fifty minutes in a moderate oven. Serve with Hollandaise Sauce I. Allow one pint oysters and one cup cracker crumbs.
A whole boned haddock sandwiched around a pint of oysters, presented as one fish. The work is in the butchering; the cooking is straightforward once you decide how long it really needs.
- The hinge: get the fillets to lie flatAsk the fishmonger to skin and bone a 4-lb haddock but leave the two fillets joined at the head end, or simply use two 1-lb skinless fillets and match them for thickness. Whatever the shape, the two layers must be even or the thin end overcooks long before the middle sets.
- Fish-sheet and dripping-panA fish-sheet was a perforated metal or wire sheet used to lift a whole fish out without breaking it; a piece of parchment with the ends left long, or a doubled sling of foil, does the same job. A dripping-pan is a shallow roasting pan or a rimmed sheet pan.
- Moderate ovenAbout 350F in modern terms. The original specifies ovens by description only, not in degrees.
- Fifty minutes is too longAt 350F a stuffed assembly of two 1-inch fillets is done in 25-35 minutes, when the center of the oyster layer reaches about 145F and the fish flakes. Held the full fifty minutes the haddock dries and the oysters shrink.
- A pint of oystersThat is a liquid pint of shucked oysters in their liquor, roughly 2 cups, or about 16-24 medium oysters. Drain them well before crumbing; the liquor is worth saving for the sauce or a chowder, but if it goes into the fish the crumbs turn to paste.
- Cracker crumbsThe original most likely means common crackers or soda crackers, drier and probably less salty than a modern saltine. Use unsalted saltines or plain water crackers crushed fine, toss with melted butter at roughly 3 tablespoons per cup, and go easy on the added salt.
- Egg washOne beaten egg is more than enough to glue the top crumbs down. Brush thinly; a thick coat sets into an omelette-like skin.
- Hollandaise Sauce IThe book's standard version: butter beaten with egg yolks, lemon juice and boiling water over hot water. Any modern hollandaise serves, and a squeeze of the reserved oyster liquor in it is not out of keeping.
- YieldFour pounds of whole fish plus a pint of oysters serves four to six as a main course. Cut across the assembled fish in thick slabs so each portion shows the oyster layer.
In turn-of-the-century New England, oysters were still cheap, abundant and used freely as a stuffing, a garnish and a sauce base, while a large haddock was the everyday groundfish of the Boston market -- the same fish that, smoked, becomes finnan haddie. Pairing the two, then finishing with hollandaise, dresses a plain local fish so that it arrives at the table looking whole and deliberate. The boning instruction, leaving the head-end bones in place "to keep fillets in shape of the original fish," belongs to a period when a dish's appearance on the platter was itself part of the recipe.