Baked Smoked Haddock

A two-line method that assumes you know what smoked haddock is and that it is already cured, so the oven is only warming it through and setting the butter. The hinge is the scald: the boiling-water dip loosens surface salt and firms the flesh, and it must be brief.

• The scald is a dip, not a poachPour boiling water over the fish and lift it straight out. Left to sit, the thin tail end begins to cook and the fillet falls apart before it reaches the oven.
• "Hot oven"In kitchen usage of this period this is usually taken as somewhere around 400-450F. Ten minutes at that heat suits a fillet of about an inch at the thickest point; thinner supermarket fillets will be done in six or seven.
• "Mask with a little butter"Masking here means coating the surface, not making a sauce. A tablespoon or so of softened butter smeared over the top, or dotted in thin slices, is the whole of it.
• Pepper, but taste before salting"Pepper liberally" is probably deliberate: the cure already carries the salt, and the recipe calls for none. Modern smoked haddock varies a good deal in saltiness, so check a corner before adding any.
• Buying the fishWhat is meant is a proper cold-smoked cure, sold as finnan haddie or simply smoked haddock. Avoid the bright yellow dyed fillets if you can; the colour is cosmetic and often masks a lighter, wetter cure that weeps in the oven.
• DonenessThe flesh should just separate into flakes at the thick end and look opaque throughout. Smoked fish dries fast, so pull it the moment it flakes rather than watching the clock.
• Yield and servingThe recipe gives no quantity; a pound of fillet would feed roughly two as a main course or four at breakfast. The instruction to serve it "quite hot" is the point of the dish: the butter congeals and the flesh stiffens within a few minutes of leaving the oven.