Three Fish Pie

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 lbpotatoes
• butter, knob, for mashed potato topping
• 3/8 cupmilk, dash, for mashed potato topping
• 1/2 cupgruyère, grated
• 1/3 cupbutter, for fish filling sauce
• 2leek, sliced
• 2/3 cupall-purpose flour
• 2/3 cupwhite wine
• 2 1/2 cupsmilk, for fish filling sauce
• 2 tbspparsley, chopped
• 9 ozsalmon
• 9 ozhaddock
• 9 ozsmoked haddock
• 6eggs, hard-boiled

Method

1. 1

   Heat the oven to 400°F (fan 350°F). Get it up to temperature while you build the filling.

2. 2

   Start the potatoes in cold salted water and simmer until a knife meets no resistance. Drain them properly — wet potatoes make a slack topping.

3. 3

   Mash the potatoes with the butter and milk until smooth, then season with pepper. Set the mash aside to firm up while you make the sauce.

4. 4

   Melt the butter in a saucepan and turn the leeks through the fat. Cover and sweat them gently for ten minutes, until collapsed and sweet.

5. 5

   Whisk the flour into the wine in a small bowl until no lumps remain. Chase every lump now — this is what thickens the sauce.

6. 6

   Pour the milk over the leeks, bring to the boil, then whisk in the wine paste. Keep stirring until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.

7. 7

   Season, then fold in the parsley, salmon, haddock and smoked haddock. Two minutes over the heat is plenty; the fish finishes in the oven.

8. 8

   Spoon the filling into an ovenproof dish and tuck the halved eggs in among it. Let it cool until set before the mash goes on, or the topping sinks straight through.

9. 9

   Spread the mash over the top and rough the surface up with a fork. Scatter the gruyère over — those ridges are what catch and brown.

10. 10

    Bake for thirty to forty minutes, until the top is golden and the edges bubble. Give it a few minutes out of the oven before you cut it.