Pleasure in smoking
Simon Courtauld
Haddock is fished from the north lAtlantic, the Irish Sea, the seas around the Faroes and Iceland, but I always associate it with the North Sea, and more particularly with the east coast of Scotland which has given us Finnan haiddies and Arbroath smokies. The Finnan haddock takes its name from the village of Findon south of Aberdeen, where the fish used to be smoked over peat or seaweed. The Arbroath haddock differs from all others by being hot-smoked and not split open, giving the skin a coppery colour and the almost white flesh a most delicate flavour. (A surprising number of people believe an Arbroath smokie to be a herring; it would make a good question for the Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? game show.) Haddock can, of course, be eaten fresh, but it is rarely found unfilleted at a fishmonger's. I wonder how many would know at once from Lucy Vickery's illustration — its brownish-grey colour, with a black lateral line and John Dory-like 'thumbprint' — that this is a haddock, I know there are those who judge fresh haddock to be superior to cod, but I think that, in the world of white fish, a baked fresh codling is hard to beat. Haddock comes into its own when smoked; when the French speak of 'le haddock' they are referring to the smoked fish, which they are inclined to offer as part of a salade riede.
Haddock are brined before being hung up to dry and smoked, usually over oak sawdust, until the flesh turns a pale straw colour. Why anyone should want to buy the bilious dyed haddock is quite beyond me. If the yellow is so attractive in certain dishes, or to certain cooks, it can be achieved, with flavour, by adding saffron, turmeric or mustard. However, the classic smoked haddock dishes — kedgeree, omelette Arnold Bennett, Cullen skink, haddock Monte Carlo — really have no need of additional flavours. I know that recipes for kedgeree, from the Indian dish khichri, may contain a sprinkling of curly powder, but I prefer it without, also without onion or hard-boiled eggs. When eaten for breakfast it should, in my view, consist only of the flaked fish, rice, a little cream and chopped parsley or chives, with a poached egg or two on top.
Whoever first brought smoked haddock to the breakfast table deserves some sort of recognition. The dish known as Monte Carlo was apparently invented for those tired and jaded after a night's gambling in the casino. The haddock is simmered in milk, which is then used to make a cheesy white sauce, to be poured over the fish and poached eggs. Smoked haddock goes equally well with other breakfast foods — scrambled eggs, bacon, tomatoes — or with cream on buttered toast.
I was a bit nervous of making an omelette Arnold Bennett (the novelist was a great patron of the Savoy Grill, which created the dish for him), but it is really quite simple. Once the haddock has been simmered in milk and water, with bay leaf and onion slices, the omelette should be conventionally cooked but, while the eggs are still runny on top, add the flaked fish plus cream and grated Parmesan cheese, keep it all flat in the pan and finish under a hot grill. Simply delicious.
Connoisseurs of smoked haddock will tell you there is no substitute for Finnan haddock — the flesh is finer, the flavour subtler, etc. than any other haddock smoked elsewhere but, in the South at least, you don't often find it so named. The Finnan haddie, they say, should be used, skin, bones and all, in the making of a classic Cullen skink. In the absence of the Finnan, simmer a smoked haddock fillet in milk and butter in which diced potatoes and onion have already been cooking, then discard any skin and bone and add cream and chopped parsley.
One could go on to talk about haddock flan, haddock souffle, haddock mousse with horseradish sauce, haddock with Welsh rarebit, and other ways of treating this quintessentially British fish. The best news is that there is no shortage of haddock with which to indulge ourselves, While cod and other species are in dangerous decline, haddock stocks in the North Sea are now healthier than they have been for 30 years.
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