Faking Smoked Haddock To Make Finnan Haddie (or Cullen Skink)?

[Old Airborne Dog]

Had both of these often as done by my Falklands Islands born grandmother, now passed on for over 40 years (so I can't run to my Gramma for help). No shortage of recipe choices to choose from, but a relative dropping by here in Montana to spend a a month hiking and touring the nearby National Parks just arrived from Canada with a package of fresh haddock now sitting in the fridge. Suggested "how about making Gramma's Finnan Haddie or Cullen Skink?" while presenting me with the fish (and a very nice bottle of scotch I suppose to persuade me to give it a shot). I have somewhat of a family reputation for being an adventuresome cook, which probably may be why nobody asked "can you do it" beforehand. Adventuresome cook isn't the same thing as being a great cook.

Problem is I've never once seen smoked haddock offered for sale at any of the supermarkets anywhere near here in Montana and I don't have the means of smoking fish to begin with in order to smoke this very nice haddock first.

My current plan to produce the smoked haddock versus plain haddock taste is to add liquid smoke to the 50/50 milk I will be using in whatever recipe I attempt. My theory being the smoke taste of the smoked haddock transfers to the other ingredients in these dishes, so I will (hopefully) get a very similar effect by adding liquid smoke to the milk to taste and then follow recipe instructions after that. If it works, the liquid smoke in the milk will transfer to the haddock and other ingredients as it does when using smoked haddock. May even have my Gramma's recipes here somewhere in her old recipe box (although given how few recipes she actually wrote down, probably not).

Any suggestions or guidance here; this is a new one for me? Better yet, somebody who's already been through the experience of needing smoked haddock for a Scottish/Brit/Newfy recipe and coming up with a solution when none was available in store?

Thanks for suggestions, hints, ideas, resources, "been there, done that", etc.

Best regards all,
Old

 

[dragnlaw]

WOW!
1st, Welcome to DC.
2nd, what a conundrum.
3rd, have you chosen which canyon lip you'll 'hip bump' the relative off? (arghh and he's Canadian!)

I sincerely wish I could help, but have never had any of those dishes. That being said, I think you have the right of it to try with the liquid smoke. I'm assuming you're familiar with it and will be careful due to its strength.

One thing I will say and have (again) no idea if this is true, I would not try to smoke it on the grill with any 'smoke' chips as I don't believe that flavour will be strong enough to penetrate to the rest of the dish.

Now, due to my ignorance, I looked up both finnan haddie and Cullen Skink. Finnan haddie is a cold smoked haddock - whereas Cullen Skink is a stew/chowder dish prepared with the finnan haddie. Is that correct?

 

[Old Airborne Dog]

Thanks for the response.

Yeah, they're Canadian. AND American (if it were to matter). We're a family where the small (and I mean small) family ranch spanned the SE corner of BC and MT. Everybody grew up about equally in Canada and MT and wandered back and forth to settle close in where their occupations took them, about half on each side of the line. So there's local miners and loggers in both Canada and the US; for my part I started blasting underground and with many twists and turns along the way started in policing before ending up jumping out of government owned airplanes home and abroad for 30 years. That's over now, and I'm here about 30 minutes from the west gate of Glacier NP until I go for the long dirt nap.

The visiting family are dual citizens; he retired as a national park ranger/mountain rescue specialist in Banff National Park... I think he would be hard to bump off any mountain; like us, they live in the mountains.

They are two separate, different main dishes - the internet recipe database can do more to show the differences than I can explain. They're similar: my Gramma's finnan haddie had/has smoked haddock, potatoes, leeks and onions, light cream, chicken stock, butter, garlic, and spices. It's a chowder the same as cullen skink. She also served smoked haddock as very lightly breaded pieces of fish lightly sauted in a smoking hot cast iron frying pan and served with a thick peppery cream sauce (or gravy) that had sliced mushrooms ladled on top of it.

Oh... and neeps along with all of it... which I despise the taste of with the heat of a thousand burning suns to this day. The only good thing about neeps is the melted butter that goes with them.

I don't know whether my Gramma's finnan haddie from the Falkland Islands where she immigrated from as a young girl with her widowed mother and two siblings is the same as from elsewhere. They arrived in North America by sailing ship in 1905 in steerage direct from the Falklands, not on a passanger liner; she never set foot in Scotland or England.

I think it's like other regional types of dishes. It's commonly associated with Scotland but she was from the Falklands. I think similar dishes are found in Oz brought by similar immigrants, and in eastern Canada in Newfoundland and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia it's apparently pretty common as well due to the heavy Scottish ancestry back there. Maybe Maine as well? Never been to Maine.

I guess if there were a version of Brit type fishermen in some country, there are versions of smoked haddock or similar white fleshed fish. Thinking of it at this moment, I have never heard of the coastal native tribes smoking white fleshed fish as they smoked the salmon they caught.

I've never made it for myself because my automatic go-to recipe is New England style clam chowder: I could make that in my sleep and the big tins of canned clams are immediately available at the local Costco and Chefstore.

I love just about any fish dish, so if smoked haddock was ever seen in a local supermarket I would have tried it out many times by now.

 

[taxlady]

I think using liquid smoke would work. According Alton Brown, liquid smoke is actual smoke condensed in water vapour.

It is very strong. I would go very easy on the liquid smoke. It's surprisingly strong and it's easier to add more drops than to try to compensate for too much.

 

[Old Airborne Dog]

I think using liquid smoke would work. According Alton Brown, liquid smoke is actual smoke condensed in water vapour.

It is very strong. I would go very easy on the liquid smoke. It's surprisingly strong and it's easier to add more drops than to try to compensate for too much.

Thank you. I learned a little bit about liquid smoke a few years ago when I stumbled over the story of how some chemist discovered smoke condensed when exposed to cold and then it was originally used as a preservative (a poor one) back then.

I use it fairly commonly to had a hint of taste to things I'm cooking. Fried rice as one example; tried that when I didn't have the usual Black Forest ham in the fridge for the ham and added a few drops of liquid smoke because we like fried rice with Black Forest ham for the ham ingredient.

I'm pretty sparing in how I use the stuff... I have had a few oopsies over the years where a few more drops than I wanted escaped the container into what I was cooking.

My cunning plot here if I don't get any further guidance before I start cooking is going to be to dose about 3/4 or a bit more of the amount of milk from the recipe with liquid smoke, tasting as I go (and counting drops if this is worth repeating). At the point where it tastes of being on the verge of too much, I'll top off the milk, taste again, and then carry on cooking the recipe.

Possible outcomes are that it does taste something like the smoked fish dish we remember from decades ago, or that the smoke taste is missing so it's a poached fish and potatoes dish with onion and garlic flavors.

 

[taxlady]

Thank you. I learned a little bit about liquid smoke a few years ago when I stumbled over the story of how some chemist discovered smoke condensed when exposed to cold and then it was originally used as a preservative (a poor one) back then.

I use it fairly commonly to had a hint of taste to things I'm cooking. Fried rice as one example; tried that when I didn't have the usual Black Forest ham in the fridge for the ham and added a few drops of liquid smoke because we like fried rice with Black Forest ham for the ham ingredient.

I'm pretty sparing in how I use the stuff... I have had a few oopsies over the years where a few more drops than I wanted escaped the container into what I was cooking.

My cunning plot here if I don't get any further guidance before I start cooking is going to be to dose about 3/4 or a bit more of the amount of milk from the recipe with liquid smoke, tasting as I go (and counting drops if this is worth repeating). At the point where it tastes of being on the verge of too much, I'll top off the milk, taste again, and then carry on cooking the recipe.

Possible outcomes are that it does taste something like the smoked fish dish we remember from decades ago, or that the smoke taste is missing so it's a poached fish and potatoes dish with onion and garlic flavors.

Cool. I see you do have sufficient experience with liquid smoke. I was just concerned because I understood the following to mean 50% milk and 50% liquid smoke, which sounded like far too much to me. "My current plan to produce the smoked haddock versus plain haddock taste is to add liquid smoke to the 50/50 milk I will be using in whatever recipe I attempt."

And now that I read that again, I wonder what "50/50 milk" is.

 

[caseydog]

Cold smoking is not hard, and you don't need a dedicated smoker. A hot plate, cast iron pan and some wood chips will generate smoke, and any container, even a cardboard box, can be used to hold the smoke in.

I wish I could find a photo of the setup I made years ago, that used a coffee can and soldering iron to generate cold smoke.

There are videos on YouTube that show a few other setups.

CD

 

[Old Airborne Dog]

I think of it as the creamer stuff, half and half, depending on whatever it's called locally. Super One here sells stuff called Half and Half or something like that. I think it's about 15% fat. A lot more than whole milk at 3.5% and certainly not whipping cream at 35%

Y'know... later down the road, maybe a little yogurt to replace some of the milk... but then it will be a different dish.

 

[Old Airborne Dog]

Cold smoking is not hard, and you don't need a dedicated smoker. A hot plate, cast iron pan and some wood chips will generate smoke, and any container, even a cardboard box, can be used to hold the smoke in.

I wish I could find a photo of the setup I made years ago, that used a coffee can and soldering iron to generate cold smoke.

There are videos on YouTube that show a few other setups.

CD

You are correct in that.

However, I am not going to get involved with smoking (whether easy or hard) to try this one time with the haddock that just arrived at my door. I am going to fake it until I make it... or fail.

If I fail... we will all live and have a laugh on me.

I already make lox that gets gobbled up as soon as it hits the table without a smoker... liquid smoke once again; paint a solution with drops of liquid smoke over the surface.

Heresy to devotees of smoking, I know. I offer no apologies to them.

 

[dragnlaw]

If I fail... we will all live and have a laugh on me.

Love it. I have been saying for years - as long as you are laughing. I don't care if you laugh with me or at me... as long as you are laughing, I have no problem with that. LOL!

 

[taxlady]

Cold smoking is not hard, and you don't need a dedicated smoker. A hot plate, cast iron pan and some wood chips will generate smoke, and any container, even a cardboard box, can be used to hold the smoke in.

I wish I could find a photo of the setup I made years ago, that used a coffee can and soldering iron to generate cold smoke.

There are videos on YouTube that show a few other setups.

CD

Oh, that sounds interesting. I'll check out YouTube.

 

[Old Airborne Dog]

Oh, that sounds interesting. I'll check out YouTube.

They sell the little tubes/boxes for putting the wood chips inside at places like Home Hardware, Lowes, Amazon, EvilBay, etc.

Everything from cheap like borscht around $10 to getting towards $100 apiece.

Canada, eh!

https://www.homedepot.ca/product/broil-king-pellet-smoker-tube/1001656197

I tried one in my BBQ once. It worked but my BBQ smelled like smoke when you were on the deck around it for days afterward.

Which might be something to keep in mind before you try firing one up in your oven or anywhere else in the house.