Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [76]
Serves 2
2 fillets of haddock, each weighing 250 g (8 oz)
salt, pepper
2 limes
125 g (4 oz) unsalted or Lurpak butter
peeled slice of ginger, 1½ cm (½ inch) deep
2–3 teaspoons chopped onion green or chives
sunflower or groundnut oil
a little melted butter, extra onion green or chives
Put the haddock on a dish, skin side down. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Remove the zest of the limes with a zester or fine grater and put it into the processor or blender. Squeeze the juice of one lime over the fish and set it to one side. Squeeze the juice of the second lime into the processor or blender. Add the butter, cut up, and grate or chop in the ginger. Whizz to a cream, then add the onion green or chives to taste and salt. Scrape out the butter into a pot. You could chill it and cut it into neat slices, if you prefer.
Just before the meal, preheat the grill. Slip a metal serving dish underneath prior to cooking.
Drain and dry the haddock. Brush the skin side with oil. Take out the heated dish from under the grill. Put the fish on it skin side down and brush the top of the fillets with melted butter. Put back under the grill. Keep an eye on it, and brush over with more butter after 2 minutes. After another 2 minutes, check to see if it is ready. When it is cooked, serve scattered discreetly with chopped onion green or chives and serve with the butter.
FINNAN HADDOCK
Fine Finnan, or Findon, haddock is a most excellent fish. The cure was first developed in the village of Findon, about 9½ km (6 miles) south of Aberdeen. I hope there is a statue there to the inventor (though I doubt it), since these days the name of the village is on the lips even of Americans 1,600 km (1,000 miles) away where, in New England at least, they may find haddock cured in the proper manner. The distinguished author of The Encylopaedia of Fish Cookery, A.J. McClane, attributes its first popularization to John Ross more than a century ago in Findon. (The firm of John Ross is still curing Finnan haddie in Aberdeen.) In fact, Finnan haddock was widely appreciated much earlier than that. Sir Walter Scott described a comparative tasting organized by some of ‘our Edinburgh philosophers’ who ‘tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at a dinner where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnan fish. These were served round without distinguishing whence they came; but only one gentleman of twelve present espoused the cause of philosophy.’ He claimed, and I am sure he may well be right, that ‘a Finnan haddock has a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire.’
Most of us have to put up with second best, which can still be very good. Incidentally you can tell a Scottish Finnan haddock from one cured in England by looking at the backbone. It should lie to the right of the split fish. In the London cut cure, developed for the London market and the south, it lies to the left.
Because of the small completeness of the proper Finnan haddie, opened out into a kite shape, it is easily distinguished from smoked cuts of cod. Take a look at the skin side too: there you will see the two dark fingerprint marks where St Peter grabbed the fish – an honour which the haddock shares with the John Dory (p. 203). The beautiful golden silvery tones of Finnan haddock come from the cold-smoking alone, no dye is used. Or rather no dye should be used. If you suspect the colour of something labelled Finnan haddock, or its shape, make firm enquiries before you buy. The Finnan cure can produce one of the finest of all smoked fish, a great treat costing little, and it should not be traduced.
In France, on menus or in shops – and in French cookery books – the word haddock indicates the smoked fish (aiglefin is the word for fresh haddock). Go carefully before you order it in a restaurant. In my experience, it usually