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Creamed Finnan Haddie
Put fish in a baking-pan, cover with cold water, and after soaking twenty minutes, bring the water to a boil. Set on the back of the range to simmer for one-half hour. Drain, rinse, and with a fork separate the fish into flakes. To one cup of fish, add one cup of white sauce. Bring to a boil; season with salt, pepper, and a liberal quantity of paprika. R
A straightforward smoked-fish supper dish that needs two adjustments: less cooking, and less salt.
- Finnan haddieCold-smoked haddock, the name usually traced to Findon in Aberdeenshire, sold today as smoked haddock fillet or whole finnan. Buy undyed if you can; the bright yellow product is dyed.
- Cut the cooking timeHalf an hour of simmering suits a harder, more heavily cured fish than is sold now. Modern smoked haddock is lightly cured and needs 8-10 minutes at a bare simmer, or it will shred into cotton wool. The soak is still worth doing to draw out salt.
- Poach in milk insteadIf you are making white sauce anyway, poach the fish in milk rather than water and use that milk for the sauce. It carries the smoke into the dish rather than pouring it down the drain.
- Back of the rangeA cool spot on a wood or coal range where a pan would hold below the boil. On a modern hob this is the lowest setting, with the surface barely trembling. Do not let it boil.
- White sauceA standard white sauce of the period runs about 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons flour cooked together for a minute or two, then 1 cup milk. For a cup of flaked fish this gives a fairly loose creamed dish.
- Season at the end, and taste firstSmoked haddock brings its own salt and the amount varies enormously between producers. Add the pepper and paprika freely, the salt only after tasting the combined fish and sauce.
- Yield and servingOne cup of fish plus one cup of sauce serves two as a light supper. Often spooned over toast, split baked potatoes, or rice; a poached egg on top is a common finish.
Finnan haddie is haddock split, brined and cold-smoked in the Scottish style associated with Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, and the name is generally traced to that place. The cure travelled well, which is why it appears in American cookbooks of the period as a pantry staple rather than a fresh-fish dish: barrels and boxes of it reached inland grocers in a condition that fresh haddock never could. The Butterick book, published by the pattern company for a broad middle-class readership, treats it the way it treats salt cod and canned salmon, as cheap protein to be freshened, flaked and stretched with a cup of white sauce. The recipe calls for paprika "in liberal quantity."