Smoked Haddock on Toast

The smell reaches you before the fish is ready. Smoky, saline, faintly sweet from the warm milk. It fills the kitchen in a way that makes someone in the next room put down what they're doing and come to see what's on the hob. That's the power of smoked haddock. It does the work for you.

This is a cold evening meal. January, February, one of those nights when it gets dark at four and you want something warm and simple that doesn't ask much of you. A piece of good smoked haddock, poached gently in milk with a bay leaf, flaked onto toast that's been buttered while it's still hot. A spoonful of the cooking liquor over the top, because throwing it away would be a small crime. Parsley. Pepper. We're only making dinner.

I buy my haddock from the same stall at the Saturday market. The undyed sort, pale gold, not that vivid yellow. It smells clean and smoky and faintly of the sea. The man who sells it wraps it in paper and always says the same thing: "That'll be good tonight." He's right every time.

I wrote it down in the notebook last winter: haddock, milk, toast, rain on the window. Some suppers don't need more description than that. The cooking liquor is the thing most people miss. Reduce it a little, stir in some butter, a squeeze of lemon. It turns into something that tastes like the whole dish concentrated into a spoonful. Pour it over and let it soak into the toast. There are few better feelings than putting a warm plate in front of someone on a night like that.