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Broiled Haddock
Clean and wash a fresh haddock, dry it on a cloth, rub it with vinegar, and sprinkle it with flour; place a well greased gridiron over a clear fire, and broil for about fifteen minutes, turning frequently. When done place it on a dish, and serve with shrimp or anchovy sauce.
A whole small haddock cooked over live coals, in the plainest late-Victorian manner. The hinge is the fish itself: it must be split or scored so heat reaches the bone in the time given, and it must be dry before it touches the metal.
- Which cutThe recipe specifies only a whole fresh haddock, with no size given and no instruction to split or score it; a small whole fish of roughly 1 to 2 lb is the likeliest reading. Modern skin-on fillets of 6-8 oz work over the same fire but need only 6-8 minutes total, skin side down for most of it.
- The gridironA hinged fish grill set over hot coals is the direct equivalent, and it makes the frequent turning possible without the fish falling apart. Under a domestic broiler, use the top rack at full heat and turn once rather than repeatedly.
- "A clear fire"Coals burned down past the flame stage, glowing and without smoke. Flare-ups from dripping fat are what scorch the flour coating and give the bitter taste this style of cooking is often blamed for.
- Vinegar and flourThe vinegar rub is traditionally said to firm the surface and help keep the fish from sticking; the flour dries the surface further and gives a thin crust. Distilled white or cider vinegar is fine. Let the floured fish sit a minute or two before it goes on so the coating sets.
- GreasingRub the hot bars with a piece of pork fat or a folded oiled cloth immediately before laying the fish down. Greasing a cold gridiron does very little.
- Fifteen minutesRight for a whole fish of a pound or more; too long for anything thinner. Haddock is done when the flesh at the thickest point loosens from the backbone and reads about 145F.
- SaltNone is called for; the sauce would have supplied much of the seasoning. Salt the fish lightly after the vinegar if you are not making an anchovy sauce.
- The saucesShrimp sauce is a butter-and-flour or cream sauce with small peeled shrimp folded in; anchovy sauce is the same base sharpened with anchovy paste or essence and a little lemon. Either can be made while the fish broils.
- YieldA 1.5 lb whole haddock serves two as a main course.
Haddock has been the workaday white fish of the North Atlantic for centuries, landed in quantity at Boston and Gloucester and shipped inland on ice by the time Oscar Tschirky was running the Waldorf's dining rooms in the 1890s. Recipes this bare are common in hotel books of the period, the written note fixing little more than the treatment and the sauce. The vinegar rub is an old British trick, and the pairing of plain broiled white fish with shrimp or anchovy sauce is straight out of that same tradition, carried into American hotel service by the largely European-trained staffs who ran it.