h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Dai is looking to expand his food habits, and is making an effort to eat ore fish. He doesnt like salmon or tuna, and has a real fear of bones. But he came home yesterday with 2 fillets of undyed smoked haddock from a fresh fish stall at the market.

I googled a few recipes, and chose a Delia one, (though I'm usually a bit wary of the Stepford Wife of cookery). I poached the haddock in some milk until opaque, then removed the fish and added some grated cheese. This is where it all went wrong, as my sauce curdled '. As an emergency rescue plan, I stirred some spready cheese into my steamed leeks instead.

Any other suggestions for cooking smoked fish?

I have no idea what to do with smoked fish, but I just had to thank you for the epithet 'the Stepford Wife of cookery'.

Lightly poach - and flake into kedgeree. We do it with brown rice, mushrooms, loadsa parsley, loadsa butter and loadsa double cream + S&P.
Fab but deadly calorific, hence we only have it once a year for brekkie on Xmas morning. With Bucks' Fizz.

grill with other smoke fish, (5) types is good, add at the same time ginger, garlic, chilli (no seeds) , peppers and anything else that works and then when grilled to perfection, serve with toast

I can eat smoked, lightly poached haddock just on its own, for breakfast. I think I even had it served with a tenderly poached egg on top once in one hotel

Apart from the kedgeree already mentioned which I would totally endorse, you can make it into a fish and potato pie with mushrooms etc. Or just serve with an accompaniment of buttery mashed potatoes and Birds Eye Peas. ( sorry, other peas are not so good)

or BBQ it! plenty of oil brushed on to it !

Sad state of no fresh fish selling outlets in this town, but kedgeree is always good (I use duck eggs with it though), and I find frozen fillets of basa, salmon, or of course haddock work well for that...
Something like a naturally smoked haddock though, which is just so tasty, I'd tend to just lightly fry and serve up with some potatos, either mashed or boiled/roast and maybe some kind of accompanyment of a vegetable variety... maybe something with mushrooms and cream/yogart (but I just like mushrooms a lot), or some spinach...

Sometimes with fish I'll roast it, wrapped in tin foil, with plenty of butter, and throw in a ton of sliced onion, or challottes and then it kind of makes a bit of its own sauce with the butter and the well cooked onions; Though sometimes I'll partly unwrap the tin foil, when its nearly done, and just throw a good amount of grated cheese on top to melt over the fish... a hard goats cheese can work well with that, or just mature chedder

Mmm, liking the baked in a foil parcel idea! Particularly cos they can be customised to add or subtract favoruite bits (I'll have capers and lemon juice on mine, he'll want butter....)

Its also handy if your doing potatos of whatever variety which want to be in the oven too; I'm only cooking for one really, but I just put the potatos round the foil parcel of fish on the tray, though of course you need to work the times out so they're both done at the same time... works well if you've made really thin chips, or have some already boiled potatos you want to kind of chrisp up into sort of wedges or err whatever you call those potatos cooked like that... If its good fish, which it probably is from a fish mongers (would that there were a fish mongers in this city), you don't relaly want to do anything overly complicated, or exotic; Its got enough flavour as it is, so, although its nice to do fancy things with chilli and ginger and herbs and tons of spices, I'd tend to reserve that more for using frozen fish portions rather than fresh ones... if that makes sense damnit... I want fish now, and all I've got is this fresh beef rump steak for dinner tonight actually must decide what I'm going to do with that... torn between just frying it and having a beef steak with some kind of potatos, or doing a stroganoff with tons of mushrooms and onions and paprica and sourcream... probably with rice which reminds me... its nearly time to go cook bacon

Smoked mackerel fillets, either plain, or with pepper, garlic, chilli in the seasoning as they were smoked.
Serve with potatoes + chives + sour cream/creme fraiche/turkish yoghurt.

I'm trying to remember what else we've had with mackerel lately, it was very good... nope. Blank there.

The only way to eat smoked haddock is without messing it around

Very simply grilled or poached and with a knob of butter on top, maybe some black pepper ground over it, but not too much. It's delicious - don't hide its delicate and wonderful flavour by adding way too much other stuff

It's something I miss a lot - all smoked fish in Germany is very salty, although there is a huge variety. But nothing like the buttery yellow haddock.

I used to love it with just bread and butter, but I have a very bland taste. Not that anyone ever complained about my cooking.

http://www.cookitsimply.com/recipe-0010-013394x.html

Tried a variation of this tonight which turned out brilliantly!

I poached some smoked haddock, and a piece of smoked cod for variety, in milk in the microwave.

I made a white sauce using the poaching liquor, added peas, flat leaf parsley, a chopped hard boiled egg, and stirred that through the flaked fish and some cooked pasta. Topped with shaved parmesan, heated in the oven.

Dai's just said that beats a rib-eye steak!

Result!

Mmmmmmmm that sounds lovely... I'm glad I just decided to make some dinner cos my stomach is rumbling ten times harder with the thought of that!