In this section we collect the editors’ favorite recipes. How about some tasty fish?
If you come across a good haddock at a reasonable price, buy it immediately. Because it is an excellent, although not the most popular fish. Low-fat, but quite juicy and meaty, without a pronounced individual taste – not like herring or mackerel, which, no matter how hard you try, cannot be confused with anything, but is amazingly grateful for sauces, marinades, spices and smoke. And, what is important, it is practically boneless (minus the ridge and fins, which cannot be avoided).
Do you have hot smoking equipment at your disposal? Oooh, then buy at least two haddocks! A regular home smoker will provide you with a whole new perspective on skinny (not body shaming, but the official terminology!) white fish. Well-cooked smoked haddock is the food of the gods: its dense, salty meat, which easily falls off the bones, is wonderfully suited to its smoky flavor. This fish will definitely be the queen of your picnic.
And if – unlikely, but not impossible! – something still won’t be eaten after it’s barely cooled down, then the next day you can prepare the original Scottish Cullen skink soup from smoked haddock.
Cooking time
(your participation is required)
30 min.
Number of servings
4
Ingredients
Gutted haddock
2 kg
Salt
3–4 tbsp. spoons
Sugar
1½ tbsp. spoons
Black pepper
a few peas
Allspice
a few peas
Vegetable oil
for lubrication
Preparation
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1.
Prepare your ingredients. Rinse the fish, remove the black film inside the belly, cut off the fins and tail. If scales remain, they do not need to be cleaned off.
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2․
Combine salt, sugar and crushed pepper of both types in a bowl and mix.
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3․
Rub the curing mixture generously over the fish on both sides and inside. Place the haddock in a container with a lid or wrap it in a bag and put it in the refrigerator for at least 12 hours, or better yet for a day. During this time, the carcasses will need to be turned over a couple of times.
Salt-sugar-pepper is the base, but you can experiment with flavors and aromas if you wish. Try adding, for example, garlic, dill, fresh ginger, coriander, citrus zest and so on.
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4.
Rinse the salted haddock and dry with paper towels (or wipe well with a damp cloth). Hang it or put it in a draft for a couple of hours or more so that it wilts a little, otherwise the fish will not so much smoke as boil.
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5.
Prepare your smokehouse according to its design, lightly grease the grate with vegetable oil and place the haddock on it. You can also rub oil on the fish itself.
To make the smoked fish tasty and not bitter, do not overdo it with wood chips: a couple of handfuls are enough for this volume of product in one batch. By the way, instead of purchased wood chips, you can use homemade wood chips or simply broken dry branches of fruit or other deciduous trees. To make the grease trap easier to clean, and to prevent burning fat from spoiling the aroma of the fish, add a layer of clean sand there.
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6․
Close the smokehouse tightly with a lid and heat the chamber to 80–90 degrees – this is the optimal temperature so that the fish is well smoked and remains juicy. Maintain the heat for 40–50 minutes, depending on how intense the “smoke” you want to get.
The exact processing time also depends on the size of the fish: if they are small, the cooking time needs to be reduced, and very large ones will either have to be smoked longer or cut into 2-3 pieces.
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7․
Remove the smokehouse from the heat and, without opening, let it cool slightly. The finished haddock should acquire a golden color and an elastic-pliable structure and can be easily pierced with the edge of a knife all the way to the ridge.
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8.
Carefully transfer the smoked haddock to a tray.
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9.
Hot smoked fish is especially good if you let it rest for a while, but if we are talking about a picnic, then you can serve it piping hot.
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