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Broiled Scrod
A young cod, split down the back, and backbone removed, except a small portion near the tail, is called a scrod. Scrod are usually broiled, spread with butter, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Haddock is also so dressed.
Barely a recipe and all the better for it: the entire method is high heat, butter, salt and pepper. What the book leaves out is what "broiled" meant in 1896, and how quickly a thin split fish overcooks.
- What scrod actually isA small cod (traditionally under about 2½ lb), split down the back and boned, leaving the two sides joined in one flat piece. Ask a fishmonger for a boned, butterflied small cod or haddock; a pair of ordinary skin-on fillets, 6 to 8 oz each, behaves the same way.
- Broiling then and nowFarmer's broiling meant a greased wire broiler held over a clear coal fire. Under a modern gas or electric broiler, work with the rack about 4 inches from the element, preheated, and do not turn a skin-on split fish at all — skin down the whole time.
- TimingFigure 6 to 9 minutes total for a piece about an inch thick at its thickest. It is done when the flesh is opaque and separates into flakes at the thick end, around 130–135°F; cod goes from silky to cottony in about a minute past that.
- When to add the butterSeason with salt and pepper first, then brush with a little melted butter before broiling and spoon more over at the table. Too much butter under a hot element smokes and can flare; the final butter is what carries the flavour anyway.
- Keeping it in one pieceSplit scrod is fragile. Broil it on a lightly oiled shallow pan or a foil sheet rather than directly on a rack, and lift it with two spatulas or slide it off the foil onto the plate.
- Haddock, and the substitutionThe note that haddock "is also so dressed" still holds — haddock is slightly softer and sweeter and cooks a shade faster. Pollock and hake also work; skip thick loin cuts, which want a hotter, shorter roast.
- YieldOne split scrod of about 2 lb serves three to four; count 6 to 8 oz of fish per person. Lemon and parsley are common accompaniments in cookbooks of the period.
"Scrod" is a New England market term rather than a species, and the word's origin is genuinely uncertain — it is often traced to a Dutch or Middle Dutch word for a cut or shred, though no derivation is settled. In Boston it meant a small cod or haddock, split and boned, of the sort brought in fresh by day boats and cooked the same evening. That it needs no sauce, no crumbing and no explanation in Fannie Farmer's book says something about how close Boston kitchens still were to the fish pier: the whole appeal was freshness.