Sussex Smokies
My sister lives in Sussex, and the other day she, her daughter and grandson went into Winnie-the-Pooh country for a walk, with lunch in a gastro pub nearby - I think the The Gallipot Inn - where they ate a Sussex smokie for lunch. This is what she is talking about - it's from a Trip Advisor photo of the actual one. It can be eaten as a starter or a main dish. I suspect this is is the starter version. Anyway I was intrigued.
Before too long I was deep into the world of Sussex pubs where Sussex smokies seem to be on the menu of almost every one. This one is from the Red Lion in Shoreham - and as you can see it too is served with some crusty bread - toasted in this instance. And it almost always was.
It was rapidly becoming obvious that this was a dish of smoked haddock in a creamy sauce that often featured mustard, with a breadcrumb topping - a mini kind of fish pie if you like. And even Nigel has a recipe for Hot smokies with cream and mustard - but with no picture and no reference to Sussex. It is presented as one of his quick dishes that he turns to every now and then. He, of course, used the gourmet Arbroath smokies although he worries:
"whether they would approve of my habit of flaking the creamy flesh into little dishes, drizzling it with cream and a dash of grainy mustard and sliding it under the grill till it bubbles, I wouldn't know." Nigel Slater
And indeed the recipes that I uncovered with the title Sussex smokies were obviously a basic idea - smoked haddock plus mustard, cream and breadcrumbs - that was open to a wide number of variations and additions - such as potatoes, onions, leek, herbs. Indeed one of those writers - Suzanne Jones of Hello Sussex, in the introduction to her recipe for Sussex Smokies says "It’s an easy recipe so play around until you find a version that ticks all your boxes". And there were many mentions of the recipe dating back to the 1800s. So below all of those variations - Sussex smokies - Nadine Brown/Sainsbury's; and A really smoking Sussex smokie - Sussex Exclusive
The most extreme variation of the Sussex smokie came from a website called Look at Brew whose author, being focussed on beer adds beer to his mix - and I have to say it looks pretty good. He justifies this by saying:
"the addition of a malty beer adds depth to the dish, enhances the characteristics of the smoked haddock and pairs beautifully with the cheddar in the sauce. It follows the well-trodden path of beer-battered fish and circles back to this being a pub staple."
Nowhere, however did I find any reference to anyone in Sussex crafting smoked haddock - for that is what smokies are - from local fish. For I had assumed that the smoked fish itself was a local speciality. After all Sussex is coastal - albeit to the English Channel, rather than a massive sea - but I know that local fishing still exists from a trip to Hastings which still prides itself on its locally caught fish, as shown here. However, if you look closely I now see that there is a note for Orders Welcome for 'Best Scottish smoked haddock - traditional and natural'.
And this is where we come to the Arbroath smokie. Which is, today a gourmet product, with it's own official label complete with the regulations of how it can be produced - mostly by a man named Iain Spink who lives in the village of Auchmithie.
"It is in this fishing village, a short drive north from Arbroath, that the smokie first appeared. The local fishwives cooked whole haddock on sticks over whisky barrels by their thousands" Nigel Slater
And what are the rules for this approved finished product?:
The fish are salted overnight, tied in pairs by the tail with hemp or jute twine, and hot-smoked over a hardwood fire (traditionally inside a halved whisky barrel set in the ground and sealed with wet jute sacks) for under an hour." Real Food Hub
It looks to be incredibly small scale - hence the doubtless high price that they fetch.
Smoking of course, is a very old way of preserving fish and there are all sorts of stories from the Vikings onwards, with Nigel suggesting this one:
"Legend has it that the first smokie was discovered and eaten by firemen in the embers of a burnt-out cottage in the town."
Which doesn't really ring true, because I'm sure they didn't have firemen back in the days of the Vikings, and surely the smoking of haddock began way, way back - possibly brought by the Vikings, who did indeed smoke fish. Nice story though.
Mildly confused I asked Google what the difference between a Sussex and an Arbroath smokie was - for it seemed to be the same fish. Was it just a question of quality and a more industrialised method in Sussex? Well no Google AI kindly told me - because nobody else did - that Sussex smokies is the name of a dish not a product - a kind of smoked fish. Moreover the Oxford Reference Dictionary sniffingly said that the term smokies because of:
"the growing popularity of the abundant and well-marketed mackerel, ... has been increasingly applied to ‘smoked mackerel’, usually with some epithet suggestive of ancient associations with a particular area—Sussex smokies, for instance, or Salcombe smokies."
These are Salcombe smokies - which are indeed smoked mackerel. Salcombe is in Devon. I wonder what my sister had in her Sussex smokies - haddock or mackerel? Or something else altogether.
Alas here in Australia we have neither. Well we did have smoked mackerel and to be fair I'm sure you can still get it, but not in your local supermarket for some reason. Besides the obvious smoked salmon and smoked trout which are a totally different kind of thing really, you can get South African smoked cod which may well have yellow dye in it as many suggest. I asked Google why we didn't smoke close cousins such as hake, or blue grenadier - I even wondered why not barramundi - but got no satisfactory answer other than that we don't want it. We are apparently happy with our smoked trout and salmon.
I gather the fish you smoke should be oily or it will dry out, and I don't know enough about Australian fish to suggest a suitable candidate, but surely there is one. We have our own kind of cod don't we? And without something like smoked haddock or cod, we can't really cook things like kedgeree or a smoky fish pie. I think most people here make fish pie with tuna. Why haven't the Scottish immigrants started up an industry for smoking fish? A mystery.
A POSTSCRIPT
This is last night's dinner - Robert Carrier's Baked tagliatelle with tomatoes and mozzarella. I know it doesn't look much but it was still delicious, even though all it is is tagliatelle baked with a very plain tomato sauce and a lot of mozzarella cheese. I really don't know why it tasted so good. The recipe called for tinned tomatoes, but I actually used 'real' tomatoes, as I have quite a few in my fridge at the moment due to their currently relatively low cost. I also added a touch of tomato passata, to make up for the lack of the rich juice that you get in a tin. It was at least as good as Alison Roman's baked pasta shells in tomato sauce, if not better. I think it might have been the mozzarella - and I did use the fresh kind. You just cook your pasta to almost al dente - mix them with butter that you have melted in your dish, then pour over your tomato sauce - no garlic, just a little chopped onion melted, with chopped and peeled tomatoes and oregano, cooked until soft. Add half of your mix of diced mozzarella and Parmesan, stir it all together and top with the rest of the cheese. Bake in the oven. He says at a low temperature. Mine was probably medium. I have leftovers for another day. And I shall make it again. You do not miss meat.
YEARS GONE BY
October 30
2021 - Missing
2020 - Missing
2016 - Everything's coming up roses
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