I Had a Haddock

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Curry Haddock Hash.
This will seem like a lot, and it is somewhat time- and dish-consuming, but it's not difficult.

Ingredients
2 pieces of smoked haddock, 125 g each, skinned and cubed (I used tinned smoked herring - much easier to find.)
2 eggses

Curry sauce:
olive oil (I used the oil from the tinned herring)
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic (Ha! I used... more.)
3/4" piece of ginger, diced
1 red chilli, diced
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp coriander
1 tsp curry powder
salt and pepper
7 oz chicken stock (I used house-made)
7 oz cream (I used... 3-4 oz? I didn't measure, just used up what was in the carton.)
juice of 1/2 lemon
several sprigs fresh coriander (aka cilantro), chopped including stalks

Crispy onions:
1/2 pint sunflower oil (I used rapeseed)
1 Tbsp flour
1 Tbsp curry powder
1/2 onion, thinly sliced

Hash:
handful of leftover roasties (aka cold roasted small potatoes)
1 oz butter
1/2 onion, sliced
olive oil

Make the curry sauce: heat the olive oil in a medium pan and add the onions and garlic. Cook over medium heat for 5-6 minutes, until softened. Add the ginger, chilli, cumin, coriander, and curry powder and cook for a further 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the stock and cook until reduced by half. Add the cream, lower the heat, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Make the crispy onions: put the oil into a medium pan and heat to 350 F. To test if the oil is the right temperature, drop a cube of bread into the oil. If it turns golden, it's ready. Mix the flour and curry powder together. Toss the sliced onions in the flour mix, then shake off any excess. Add the onions to the hot oil, taking care they don't stick together too much. After 2-3 minutes they should be crisp and golden. Remove from the oil and place on a paper towel to drain. Season with sea salt flakes.

Make the hash: cut the potatoes into 3/4" cubes, or thereabouts. Melt half the butter in a frying pan over medium heat and sauté the potatoes for 6-8 minutes, until they start to brown. Add the onions and continue to sauté for 3-4 minutes.

Bring the curry sauce back to the boil and drop in the haddock. Simmer for 6-7 minutes until the fish is cooked. (The tinned herring didn't need cooking.) Let the hash continue to cook for 5-6 minutes further until it's nice and crisp. Season with salt and pepper.

Poach two eggses. Add the lemon juice and chopped coriander to the curry sauce. Plate the hash, spoon the curry fish over the hash, and top each with an egg. Finish with some crispy onions on top.

What worked: This was delicious. I thought it might be too spicy (our curry powder is pretty hot) but the cream and lemon juice took it down a notch. The crispy onions were a nice touch to provide a texture contrast to the soft fish and creamy/crunchy potatoes. And it looked quite showy.

What didn't: It is fairly time-intensive, which is why it was a Sunday brunch dish. I made the curry and onions ahead of time while the wife was working out and so they weren't as hot/crispy as they could have been.

There may be ways to streamline this recipe a bit - with an air-fryer, for example (not that we have one), or roasting the chopped potatoes in the toaster oven.

Will I make it again? Every once in a while. We've been making a lot of breakfast hash dishes from this book (which is why I bought a copy).

Comments

[tshuma]

This sounds delightful and given the amount of work it involves will likely be nothing I try, since the spouse does not consume seafood*.

(*the one exception is salmon sashimi. not cooked salmon, not smoked, just sashimi.)

[madbaker]

My sympathies. I have more food dislikes than the wife does, and since I do the majority of the cooking I don't miss much. (It's also one reason why one of the first serious relationship questions we settled was "Do you like garlic?")

[tshuma]

Spouse and I have had many a sad conversation where his food pickiness has limited things. Especially now, when we are cooking at home so much of the time, the range of what I have been eating is sharply limited compared to what I would prefer. (No seafood, no eggplant/mushrooms/bell peppers/much onion/cheese that isn't manchego or parmesan reggiano or very similar.....and much, much more.)

We are, however, fortunately aligned on garlic. And he has expanded to add a food about once every three years, so there's the very infrequent surprise.

[madbaker]

The wife's preferences have expanded over the years as well. When we first started dating she wouldn't touch cilantro, for example. (But green bell peppers are still verboten.)