Inspired by Michelin Chef, Jan Hendrik, and Yottam Ottolenghi, I attempted two smoked haddock dishes for my husband and sous-chef's birthday yesterday.
My first challenge was sourcing smoked haddock. No luck there. My second challenge was just sourcing plain old frozen Haddock. A quick trip to Harris Teeter proved successful, yay. I then had to ask the master smoker to smoke said piece of haddock, while still keeping the dishes a surprise. He smoked the fish beautifully, until still slightly translucent and slightly under the advised "cooked" temperature (120°F as opposed to 140°F). This was fine as one of the dishes would require additional cooking and frankly it tasted so good right off the BBQ, I knew it would be fine for the cold appetizer.
The two dishes were a Smoked Haddock Velouté with Rice Lace for starters and Smoked Haddock Brandade with Lime Yoghurt for mains. Sounds simple right? After I shooed the sous-chef out of the kitchen, I realized how much work it was juggling these two dishes on my own 😮. And it was already 6:30pm!
No worries, after using every single dish and saucepan in the kitchen, the birthday boy came to the rescue and tackled the mounting pile in the kitchen sink. Amazingly, everything came together by 8pm, helped along with some Veuve Cliquot!
I followed both recipes almost exactly, but I did not deep fry the brandade, instead turning to the oil-free cooking method of the air fryer. Also I did not have Tête de Moine cheese and a girolle (go figure), so I shaved off some Gruyére with a knife (no, not the same effect, but very tasty nonetheless). The rice lace was a challenge and I cooked it much longer than two minutes to get it slightly browned and crispy. Not as pretty, but hey, no Michelin stars here 😂.
The starter: Smoked Haddock Velouté
The smoking Haddock!
