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Broiled Smoked Haddock
Brush a fish over with warmed butter, dust with pepper, place it on a gridiron over the fire and broil until done, or it can be cooked in front of the fire. Serve while hot.
A three-line recipe that assumes an open coal fire and a cook who knows when a fish is done. The technique translates directly to a broiler or a grill, but the smoked haddock of Oscar's day needs a word of explanation.
- The fish"Smoked haddock" in a New York hotel kitchen of this period would most often have been finnan haddie: haddock split, brined and cold-smoked, commonly sold whole on the bone. Cold-smoked fish is preserved but essentially uncooked, and must be cooked through. Look for undyed fillets rather than the bright yellow dyed sort, which is usually more colour than smoke.
- Gridiron to broilerA gridiron is a hinged or flat grate set over live coals. Use a broiler with the rack about 4 inches from the element, or a hot grill. Cooking "in front of the fire" means propping the fish on a stand facing the coals, radiant heat rather than direct.
- TimingOscar gives none because he expects judgement. A split fish or thick fillet takes roughly 5 to 8 minutes total under a hot broiler, skin side down for most of it. It is done when the flesh flakes and turns opaque; smoked haddock dries out fast past that point.
- Warmed butterMelted but not browned, brushed on to keep the surface from drying and to help it colour. Brush again once during cooking. Clarified butter is less likely to scorch under a broiler.
- No saltThe recipe seasons with pepper only. Brined smoked haddock carries plenty of salt; taste before adding any at the table.
- If the fish is heavily saltedOlder, harder-cured finnan haddie was often soaked in milk or water for 20 to 30 minutes first. Modern lightly cured fillets do not need it.
- Yield and servingAs a rough modern guide, a whole split haddock of about 1 to 1.5 lb serves two, or count 6 oz of fillet per person; the recipe itself specifies neither. Finnan haddie was commonly served with a pat of butter melting on top, lemon, or a poached egg at breakfast.
Finnan haddie is generally said to take its name from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, though the derivation is not settled and Findhorn on the Moray Firth has long been advanced as a rival claim; the Scottish cure travelled with Scottish and English cooks into American hotel kitchens through the nineteenth century. By the time Oscar Tschirky was running the dining rooms at the Waldorf it was standard breakfast and supper fare in New York, cheap enough to be democratic and smoky enough to feel like a specialty; it appears in this book alongside a good many other dishes that a hotel kept ready to broil to order. The brevity of the instruction is itself a period detail: the book was written for people who already understood a coal range and a gridiron, and what they wanted from Oscar was the seasoning and the sequence, not a lesson in fire.