Arbroath Smokies refers to a Scottish traditional dish of smoke-cured small haddock fish that are gutted with the heads removed, though kept closed, and are smoked in pairs.
This dish uses small haddock which are gutted, salted, and smoked but not split until broiling before serving. Arbroath Smokies are a type of lightly smoked small haddock with a particularly good flavour and texture.
The Arbroath Smokie originally came from the small fishing village of Auchmithie which is three miles north-east of Arbroath. Legend has it that a store caught fire one night destroying barrels of haddock preserved in salt. The next morning, the people of Auchmithie came to help clean up and found that some of the barrels had caught fire, cooking the haddock inside. Upon further inspection it appeared that the haddock was edible and quite tasty. Arbroath Smokies are prepared using traditional methods that date back to the late 1800s. They are salted to preserve them, left overnight to dry then hung over wood to smoke.
Arbroath is a small town on the east coast of Scotland, a little to the north of Dundee
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