Milk Poached Smoked Haddock

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About this Recipe

I remember this as a kid, in my Aunty Mary’s house. The smoked haddock, which was bright orange was poached in the milk with onions and a little white pepper. Those were days of steamed windows in the middle of the day when the spuds were boiling, it was raining outside, and dinner was at 1 o’clock, some of the happiest days of my life.

I put it on the menu at the Winding Stair when I was there; in fact I think it’s still on the menu. Of course I used the naturally smoked haddock, without the awful dye. It went down a treat, even Tom Doorley liked it. But it was very rich, perhaps a bit too rich; in the restaurant it was always made with creamy milk ( ½ cream ½ milk ) and served with cheddar mash! Heart attack in a bowl! These days however I like to poach in just milk with large rings of onion in the milk. I’ll serve it like a soup, and crumble a large floury potato into the liquor, a bit of wilted spinach seasoned with grated nutmeg elevates this dish to a great wintry treat.

Ingredients

• 1 Naturally Smoked Haddock Fillet
• ½ pint of low-fat milk
• White pepper
• 1 large Onion, cut into rings
• Steamed large floury potatoes, you can’t beat a British Queen or a Record for this ‘flouriness’ which Irish people love so much.
• Some roughly chopped curly parsley.

Method

Use a wide shallow sauté pan for this. (The VIKING VSCO 403 is perfect see our online shop for this) Simmer the Milk and the Onion together to flavour the milk.

You can prepare the fillet into 4 portions. Place them in the simmering milk. You wont’ want to boil this as your fish will break up. Cook gently for about 20 minutes, swirling the pan around from time to time to make sure the top of the fish is covered.

Heat your grill and put this under the grill for a few minutes before serving. The fat content in the milk will brown a little, obviously if you use cream you’ll get more browning, but it’s still worth doing with the milk.

Peel the just steamed spuds, and slightly break them up with a fork.

In each bowl place a piece of fish and pour over some of the liquid and the poached onions. Spoon some of the crumbled spud into each bowl, into the liquid around the fish.Sprinkle with the roughly chopped parsley, and season with a little white pepper. Eat with a spoon.