Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Haddock along with all the Haddock containing recipes presented on this site, with 35 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Haddock recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Haddock as a major wild food ingredient.



Haddock — The haddock, Melanogrammus aeglefinus is a marine fish of the Gadidae (cod) family that is distributed on both sides of the North Atlantic. Haddock is a popular food fish and is widely fished commercially. It can be easily recognized due to the black lateral line running along its white side (not to be confused with pollock which has the reverse, i.e. white line on black side) and a distinctive dark blotch above the pectoral fin, often described as a "thumbprint" or even the "Devil's thumbprint" or "St. Peter's mark".

Reaching sizes up to 1.1m, haddock is fished for year-round. Some of the methods used are Danish seine nets, trawlers, long lines and fishing nets. The commercial catch of haddock in North America had declined sharply in recent years but is now recovering with recruitment rates running around where they historically were from the 1930s to 1960s.

Haddock is a very popular food fish, sold fresh, smoked, frozen, dried, or to a small extent canned. Fresh haddock has a clean white flesh and can be cooked in the same ways as cod. Freshness of a haddock fillet can be determined by how well it holds together, as a fresh one will be firm; also, fillets should be translucent, while older fillets turn a chalky hue. However, unlike cod, haddock does not salt wall and is traditionally smoked for preservation. One popular form of haddock is Finnan Haddie, named for the fishing village of Finnan or Findon in Scotland, where it was originally cold-smoked over peat. Finnan haddie is often served poached in milk for breakfast. The town of Grimsby in Yorkshire is also famous for its haddock smokeries. The town of Arbroath on the east coast of Scotland produces the Arbroath Smokie. This is a hot-smoked haddock which requires no further cooking before eating. The image above shows a whole haddock on the top with a fresh haddock fillet (bottom left) and naturally smoked haddock fillets (bottom right).

Due to over-fishing of cod, haddock has been targeted as a replacement. This, in turn, has led to the over-fishing of haddock. Fish stocks are currently classed as 'vulnerable'.

Young Atlantic haddock or cod prepared in strips for cooking is called scrod (a term that originated in Boston, Mass). Haddock is an important fish sold as British fish and chips (cod being the main fish used, followed by haddock and then plaice).