No. 1166

Finnan Haddies, Broiled Maitre d'Hotel and Baked with Cream

Aiglefin Fume Grille, Maitre d'Hotel et a la Creme au Gratin

Finnan haddies is haddock slightly salted and smoked; brush it over with oil; broil on a slow fire; dress and pour over a maitre d'hotel butter (No. 581).

Baked with Cream.—Put in a saucepan a little cream to which add a piece of butter kneaded with a little fecula, add a bay leaf, some thyme, basil, mignonette and pepper. Boil, add the haddock and let cook, when done, strain the sauce, add chopped parsley and shredded chives, put the finnan haddies in a buttered dish, cover with the sauce, bestrew with bread-crumbs, sprinkle with butter and bake; serve as soon as it is a fine color.

← No. 1165 Haddock, Holland Style Pompano, Snapper & Other Fish No. 1167 Halibut, Admiral →

For the Modern Kitchen

Two treatments of smoked haddock from Ranhofer's kitchen, written in the telegraphic style of a professional who assumed his reader already knew the base preparations. A few of the terms have shifted meaning since 1894.

Mignonette is pepper, not a flowerMignonette here means coarsely cracked peppercorns, usually white or a white-and-black mix, used in pale sauces. Ranhofer lists it alongside "pepper" without explaining the distinction; a generous pinch of cracked white pepper covers it.
FeculaPotato starch. Cornstarch behaves close enough for this sauce. Kneaded raw into soft butter it makes a beurre manié, whisked into the simmering cream in small pieces to thicken it without lumps.
Maitre d'hotel butterHis No. 581, in the usual form: softened butter worked with chopped parsley, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Roll it in paper, chill firm, and cut coins to melt over the hot fish.
Judge the salt firstRanhofer calls the fish "slightly salted," but cure strength varies widely between suppliers then and now. Taste a corner of raw fish; if it reads sharply salty, soak 30 minutes in cold milk or water before either preparation. If it is mildly cured, as commercial fillets usually are, skip the soak or the dish turns flat.
"Broil on a slow fire"Moderate heat with the fish set some distance from the element, skin side toward it, roughly 8 to 10 minutes for a half-inch fillet. Smoked haddock is already dry-surfaced and scorches quickly under a hard broiler.
Two cookings in the cream versionThe fish poaches in the cream, then the strained sauce goes back over it for the gratin. Poach barely, 4 to 5 minutes, until the flesh just parts; it finishes in the oven and overcooking at the first stage gives you cotton wool.
Oven for the gratinRanhofer gives no temperature, only "bake; serve as soon as it is a fine color." A hot oven, around 425F, near the top works: you are browning crumbs, not cooking fish, and 6 to 8 minutes should do it.
Dyed and undyedMuch smoked haddock sold as finnan haddie is dyed bright yellow. Undyed fillets, pale straw colored, give a cleaner flavor and look better under a cream sauce.
YieldRanhofer gives none. Reckon 6 oz of fish per person as a main course, 3 to 4 oz as a first course, and about half a cup of cream per portion for the baked version.

A Little History

Finnan haddie takes its name from Findon, a fishing village south of Aberdeen, where haddock were traditionally split, lightly brined and cold-smoked over peat and hardwood; the association with that village is old and well attested, though the various stories about how the cure was discovered are folklore rather than record. By the time Charles Ranhofer compiled The Epicurean in 1894 from his decades at Delmonico's, cured Scottish haddock was a standard transatlantic import and a fixture of American hotel breakfasts and Lenten menus. What Ranhofer does with it is characteristic of his method: he takes a plain smokehouse product and runs it through the French repertoire, first under a compound butter, then poached in cream and finished au gratin.