Winter has hit Cape Town and I’m so excited to start cooking lovely winter food – soups, stews, risottos, pasta bakes and pies. There’s nothing like a rich meaty pie on a cold, rainy night. As a converted pescatarian, I’ve forfeited the joys of chicken and mushroom pie, steak pie and cottage pie – some of my favourite childhood dishes. I’ve recently discovered Jamie Oliver’s ‘fantastic fish pie’ recipe which is the most brilliant substitute. It’s creamy, filling and warming – the most perfect comfort food to look forward to after a miserable grey day. There’s a lot to it though – this is the kind of thing that’s great to cook on the weekend when you’ve got an hour or two to spend in the kitchen.
Serves 6
Ingredients:
5 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 2.5 cm squares
2 free-range eggs
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, halved and finely chopped
285 ml low fat cream (double cream if you want it really rich)
2 generous handfuls of grated mature cheddar or parmesan cheese
juice of 1 lemon
1 heaped tsp English mustard
1 large handful of flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
455 g haddock or cod fillet, skin removed, pin-boned and sliced into strips
300 g salmon, skin removed
250 g raw, cleaned prawns, peeled
Preheat the oven to 230 C.
Put the potatoes in salted boiling water and bring back to the boil for 2 minutes. Carefully add the eggs to the pan and cook for a further 8 minutes until hard-boiled, by which time the potatoes should also be cooked. At the same time, steam the spinach in a colander above the pan for a minute. When it’s done, remove from the colander and gently squeeze the excess moisture out. Drain the potatoes in the colander. Remove the eggs from the pan, cool under cold water and then peel and quarter them. Set aside.
In a separate pan, slowly fry onion and carrot in a little olive oil for about five minutes, and then add the cream and bring just to the boil. Remove from the heat and add cheese, lemon juice, mustard and parsley. Put the spinach, fish and eggs into a big ceramic dish and mix together, pouring over the creamy veg sauce.
Mash the cooked potatoes, adding a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a touch of nutmeg. Spread on top of the fish.
Cook in the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes or until the potato starts turning golden. It’s great served with peas and lots of good old tomato sauce.
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