Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [77]
In Scotland, there are local variations of the split haddock Finnan cure. Eyemouth haddock and Glasgow Pales, for instance, are even more lightly brined and smoked.
CAISSES À LA FLORENCE
Don’t be put off by the strange-sounding combination of ingredients in this recipe from The Gentle Art of Cookery by Mrs C. F. Leyel and Miss Olga Hartley. It is particularly delicious if you take the trouble to use Finnan haddock – or Arbroath smokies – and I would suggest you set aside a little of the cooked fish when you are making other, more large-scale dishes in this section. About half a fish, for a trial run.
You will also need some very large prunes, three or four per person. Soak and stone them if necessary.
Mash – or process – the boned and skinned fish with enough double cream to make a smooth, thick paste. Flavour it with cayenne. I doubt you will need more salt.
Stuff the prunes with this mixture.
Cut broad fingers of bread that will accommodate two or three prunes each, and fry them in butter. Any left-over haddock paste can be spread on top. Then divide the prunes between them. Put into a moderately hot oven to warm through. They do not need to be cooked, just warmed enough for pleasant eating.
CULLEN SKINK
The origin of this soup is mysterious. In recent years, with the revival of interest in local dishes, it has become popular in a number of the better Scottish restaurants. The name gives it an air of ancient mystery. Yet all paths lead back only half a century to Marian McNeill’s The Scots Kitchen, which first came out in 1929.
Skink means shin of beef. It has also been used to indicate soup for at least 150 years. For even longer, the shores of Scotland east of Inverness – where Cullen lies – and down round to Aberdeen and Arbroath have been famous for cured haddock. Yet there is no mention of the soup in that earlier quarry of Scots recipes, The Cook and Housewife’s Manual by Meg Dods, of 1826. Or in the splendid compilation from recipes left by Lady Clark of Tillypronie that came out in 1909.
Perhaps we shall never know. Perhaps when Marian McNeill describes it as ‘a cottage recipe from the shores of the Moray Firth’, she is concealing some very special visit to a friend with a more than usual skill who, on her own – or on his own – arrived at this most successful soup, without any promptings from the past.
Serves 4
1 Finnan haddock, skinned
1 onion, chopped
600 ml (1 pt) milk, boiled
about 150 g (5 oz) mashed potato
2 tablespoons butter
salt, pepper
Put the haddock into a pan and pour on enough boiling water to cover it. Bring back to the boil, add the onion and simmer until cooked. Remove the fish, extract the bones and put them back into the pan. Simmer for a further hour, strain into a clean pan and heat up. When boiling, pour in the hot milk, and add the haddock which you have flaked meanwhile. Simmer a few minutes, then stir in mashed potato until you arrive at the consistency you like best. Add the butter, with seasoning to taste.
VARIATION Betty Allen of Airds Hotel, Port Appin, and one of Scotland’s best cooks, makes Cullen skink by sweating the onion in butter until golden, then adding 1 kg (2 lb) of Finnan haddock cut in 4 pieces and 600 ml (1 pt) water. This is simmered for 30 minutes. The fish is drained, the bones and skin discarded, and the soup finished with milk and potatoes as above. Cream and chives are the final additions.
FINNAN HADDOCK WITH EGG SAUCE
It may seem odd to use a French recipe for one of our best-known national dishes. I think, though, that this one is worth giving for its careful instructions. It comes from Ali-Bab’s Gastronomie Pratique, first published in 1912 with a grand, augmented edition in 1928. Nowadays we expect recipe writing to be informative as to quantity and method, but with writers of the past, cookery books were more a collection of reminders and new