Kitchen Smoked Haddock

With Amelia O'Reilly & Nico Monday

From Food for Thought by Heather Atwood:Nico and Amelia recently showed me how to prepare stove-top-smoked fish, fish cooked over a pan of smoking rice, brown sugar and spices.  In five minutes, with no more tools than a pan and some tin foil, a white fleshy fish like haddock becomes uniquely infused with flavor, but not sodden with smoke, a delicate, flavorful fish treatment for which I would pull up my plastic shower stool.  

I need to emphasize just how simple, how surprising, how smokeless this technique is.  The smoke remains completely sealed in the package - no kitchen smelling like Plymouth Plantation for days.  The only mess is the burned rice at the bottom of the pan, which is what the foil is for.  Just roll up the foil and the pan is clean.  

Two critical tips are to pat the fish so that it’s very dry before laying on the racks, and don’t add too much water to the rice - just enough to moisten and thus blend in the sugar.   You don’t want the fish to steam.

The results are a bronzed, tender fish just edged in spice.  Do I have to say it again?  Try it.

Ingredients

For the fish: Use firm fish like haddock, salmon or black bass.
For the smoking mixture:  

MIx together 2 parts rice to 1 part brown sugar, and add a few bay leaves, a tablespoon or so of whole peppercorns, fennel, and whole coriander.  Make enough rice mixture to cover the bottom of your saute pan - about 1 cup.

Instructions

1. Salt fillets of fish on both sides liberally, twice what you would normally use.2. Let fish dry for at least two hours, but as long as 24.3. Pat fish so it is extremely dry.4. Make smoking mixture.5. Line a saute pan with foil.  Add just enough water to rice mixture to moisten and make the brown sugar slightly dissolve, mixing all together.  You don't want the mixture to be wet or it will steam and not smoke.6. Spread the rice mixture over the foil.  Set baking rack over the rice, and lay the fillets on top.  Seal the whole pan tightly with foil.7. Put pan on high heat and cook for 5 - 10 minutes.  Peek if you have to.  The fish should be cooked and bronze from the smoke.Recipe courtesy of Nico Monday, the Market Restaurant, 2011.

From Food for Thought by Heather Atwood; Amelia O'Reilly and Nico Monday, both chefs who trained at Chez Panisse with Alice Waters, decided to open The Market on River Road in Annisquam, thus becoming unofficially or not, the first Chez Panisse missionaries to arrive on Cape Ann. Amelia and Nico hope to convert a population to delicious, seasonal foods grown, raised, and fished for right here.
They sat with me recently and simply confirmed two basic truths to the Chez Panisse tenet: 1. The less a food travels, the less you have to manipulate it to taste good. 2. Be conscious. Amelia O'Reilly grew up in Lanesville, eating her father's freshly pulled lobsters and caretaker RoRo Aeillo's robust Sicilian dinners, like fresh tomato sauce made brilliant pink with whole-milk ricotta cheese. Nico grew up in Berkeley. Alice is his godmother. Both chefs understood early the taste of whole, homemade foods. Contact Heather at heatheraa@aol.com. Her blog is at gloucestertimes.com/foodforthought