A classic cold-smoked product with centuries of Scottish tradition.
I owe much to one of my favorite sites, Serious Eats, for their great recipe for Cullen Skink, a classic, creamy Scottish chowder whose main ingredient is finnan haddie, or cold-smoked haddock. Until I read their recipe, it hadn't sunk in that finnan haddie was a cold-smoked product that I had heretofore ignored, and that I could use their simple brine and my handy trash can smoker to have some ready by dinnertime.
I'll pause here to remind fellow Eaters that it's good practice to weigh the ingredients for brines and similar chemistry-class type recipes, especially due to variations in salt volume among styles and brands. So we'll bow to the natural superiority of the scale and the metric system.
First, make a brine: add the sugar and salt to 500 ml of water in a small saucepan, and heat until it just dissolves. Pour the mixture into a large bowl, add about 500 g of ice to cool things off, and then add another 1000 ml of cold water. Stir or let sit until the ice dissolves.
When the mixture is quite cool - refrigerate if necessary - add the fish. I've sized this recipe for 2 lbs., but 2 liters is plenty of brine for a good 5 lbs of haddock, so if you're an optimist you can go all the way here and freeze what you don't use. Let the fish loll in the brine, in the fridge, for just one hour. Remove and pat dry with paper towels.
Next, let the fish rest, uncovered, on a rack in the fridge for another few hours or overnight. This is just to develop a bit of a sticky skin, or pellicle, that will help the smoke particles stick. Don't omit this step. But - if you are desperate for time, Poppa Larry has found that one hour in front of an ordinary room fan will produce the same result.
You're ready to start smoking! If you're a newbie, keep in mind that cold-smoking is not supposed to cook your fish, just cover it with tiny smoke particles. This is why you can't use an ordinary smoker or BBQ grill, and should only smoke in a temperature range between 25 and 65 degrees F. Much higher and you risk raising the fish temp to over 80 or 85 degrees F, where the proteins can start to link up and turn your nice recipe into haddock jello. You can then either try and create an entire new style of fish cuisine, or just cook it the rest of the way.
So - if you have a patch of backyard or rooftop, follow the trash can link in the directions above to smoke the hell out of that fish. Use oak or cherry if you have it, and smoke for a full 6 hours, with both ends of the A-Maze-N gadget smoldering. For recipes, I can personally recommend the above Cullen Skink, this nice baked potato from the British superstar chef Nigel Slater, or my own lovely Scotch Manhattan Bouillabaisse, pictured below.
