Smoked haddock

I’m fired with the thought of smoked haddock. I’m not quite sure why.

Last night we popped over to Carnforth to buy some diced lamb. (Booths supermarket there does decent sized pieces unlike the scrappy bits elsewhere around here.)

As I mentioned a while back we’ve come to the conclusion we need to eat out at least once a week while the Fox is having this hospital treatment. We decided to stop at the County Hotel in Carnforth for that meal. It was delicious. I had a starter of smoked haddock, salmon & prawn fishcakes with sweet chilli dipping sauce & small side salad. Delicious. The delicate smokiness swirled round my mouth. I suspect that’s what started getting the idea into my mind. I followed the fishcakes with oven baked salmon with a lemon cream sauce while the Fox had some excellent fish, chips & mushy peas.

I had been intending to make a lamb curry today, using the lamb we’d just bought. At some time I was going to buy some fish, something strong enough to cope with an Avocado & Yogurt side salad – mackerel or salmon maybe – I hadn’t quite decided what fish. By the time I’d finished my meal, my thoughts had changed from salmon.

When we got home we watched “Masterchef: the Professionals”. The skills test set by Marcus Wareing involved poaching some smoked haddock. As I watched him flake the moist-looking fish, my mouth began to water. A light bulb went off in my mind – smoked haddock.  That would have a strong enough flavour to cope with the avocado & yogurt. We haven’t had any smoked haddock for a while. We’re doing a top-up shop today so why not buy some smoked haddock. The lamb can wait until the weekend.

I was just thinking of poaching the haddock in milk as Marcus had done. By now I’m thinking I might top the fish with a poached egg each.

When I was a child I hated smoked haddock. My gran – she lived with us until she died – used to pop to the fishmonger every week & buy some smoked haddock to poach for tea. The whole house stank of smoked haddock. I hated it. I tried it again after I’d met the Fox – it was one of his favourite fish - & discovered I could enjoy it, even like it. Maybe it was the way my gran cooked the fish I objected to. Even now I can’t work out how she could stink the place up so much.

These days I even have fond memories of a smoked haddock dish we, along with a friend, had in a pub while holidaying in Edinburgh several years ago in the 1980s.