This recipe comes from Nathalie Hambro's "Simple Fare" (1986), one of the more interesting cook books in my collection. As well as being a fashion designer, and an all-round style guru, Nathalie Hambro is one of the most innovative and inspiring cookery writers out there, and if you are looking for fresh ideas I whole-heartedly recommend her books. Most of them, I think, are out of print but can be bought easily from amazon.co.uk, or abebooks.co.uk. I like this recipe for its Baltic, or Nordic, overtones, and it's very easily made with the simplest of ingredients. In concept, it's very similar to Gravlax.
Line a dish with tin foil. Spread some fresh dill over the foil, and season with sugar, Maldon salt, and black pepper. Next, place a fresh smoked haddock fillet over the dill. Normally I would use undyed haddock, but for this recipe I've found that the dyed yellow haddock works better. The Haddock needs to be as fresh as you can get it.
Cover the fish with more dill, sugar, sea salt and pepper. It's best to use more sugar than salt, and to go easy with the pepper. Sprinkle some large peeled prawns on top. Wrap the whole thing up tightly with the tin foil, and stick it into the 'fridge, with a weight on top, for at least twenty four hours- preferably longer.
When it's ready, slice the haddock into long, thin pieces. It's a bit like Japanese sushumi. Arrange in a serving dish with the prawns.
Finally, take some spring onions, and cut them in four lengthways. Soak them in a bowl of ice-cold water- after a few minutes the green tops will start to curl up; this looks impressive. Zero effort. Take them out, drain them; and stick them in with the marinated haddock and the rest of the prawns.