Fish Pie

Proper fish pie - Fetch all this together and pretend delia never existed.

Ingredients

• 1 onion (smallish), thinly sliced
• 2 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 pint milk*
• 10 fluid ounces double cream
• 1 pound un-skinned cod or haddock fillet
• 8 ounces un-dyed smoked cod or haddock (if it's dyed it'll make the sauce a funny colour)
• 4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled & sliced/quartered
• 4 ounces butter*
• 1 3/4 ounces plain flour
• bit of finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• grated nutmeg
• 2 1/2 pounds peeled floury potatoes
• 1 egg yolk
• salt & pepper for taste

Method

- Put the onion, cloves, bay leaf, 15 fluid ounces of milk, the cream, cod and smoked cod in a pan. Bring just to the boil and simmer for 8 minutes. Lift the fish on to a plate and strain the cooking liquid into a jug.

- When the fish is cool break it into large flakes, discarding the skin and bones. Sprinkle it over the base of a oven proof dish and cover with the eggs.

- Melt 2 ounces of the butter in a pan, add the flour and cook for one minute. Remove from the heat and gradually stir in the reserved cooking liquid. Return to the heat and bring slowly to the boil, stirring. Simmer gently for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the parsley and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper. Pour over the fish and leave to chill in the fridge for an hour.

- Make mash with the rest of the butter and milk. * I put 1 pint and 4 ounces of butter, that's about what I use.

-Put mash on pie when it's cooled a bit. 34-40 mins to heat through, bit of cheese on top if you really want, it's not needed though.

This'll do four and needs an oven proof that's a fair size, half it all and use a smaller dish for two people simple really.