My father often spoke warmly of Finnan Haddie, but my mother never cooked it for him. She said cooking fish at home made the whole house smell bad even though we lived in Kennebunkport, where fresh caught haddock was usually available and more than one fisherman regularly had cold smoked haddock for sale. And baked on a bed of sliced onions and heavy cream – yum yum! But that’s Finnan Haddie, for which I am sure you can find decent recipes in standard cookbooks
Dan King photo
Finnan Eggie is a similar, whole meal, but prepared slightly differently.
First, peel a medium sized, sweet onion, removing and discarding the dry, paper-like outer covering, and perhaps the next shell (your choice). With a sharp, pointed knife, cut out the spot where the root used to be, and the spot on top where the paper hairdo formerly was. Then trans-sect the onion at the equator, on the line where its belt would be if an onion were wearing pants. Then, placing the two halves upright on their now flat middle, inflict three vertical cross cuts to produce six wedge-shaped pieces for each half of the onion. Pressing down on these pieces with the flat of a knife, spatula or the palm of your hand should separate the remaining chunks of onion into individual thin pieces, ready to start cooking in the heavy cream, butter, olive, or other cooking oil, your preference.
A word of warning here: As soon as the onion senses that you are about to squish it into separate pieces, it is apt to explode in different directions, hoping to find the nearest exit, which may be on he floor or you lap or in junior’s glass of orange juice that he forgot to finish before heading off to school.
Continue cooking the onion pieces on low heat until they begin to turn translucent. Not limp and not browned nor fully cooked so as to still have a good bit of crunch left in them.
Turn heat to low. Eggs are delicate, so avoid burning them. Break two eggs over the bed of sliced onions. Watch carefully until the egg whites begin to go from clear to white, and then attack and harass the eggs while continually chopping, swishing, scraping and turning so the eggs are well mixed as they cook. When done, (you judge) scrape the egg and onion mixture directly onto the serving plate, where a shot of catsup will brighten up the view and put an edge to the eggs that the onions miss
I suppose you could arrange for the smoked flavor of Finnan Haddie in this version of Finnan Eggie by adding a drop of essence of smoke available in bottles on the shelf in most grocery stores. However, I don’t think it needs the smoky flavor and the effect of the onions will be enough to tell every one that you are fully awake, now and they might step back a pace or two and not crowd you.
Orrin Frink is a Kennebunkport resident. He can be reached at ofrink@gmail.com.
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