EASIEST FISH PIE

Fish pie is the epitome of comfort food. What it lacks in looks, it makes up for in taste and texture. I use a fish pie mix containing salmon, pollock (or cod) and smoked haddock. It’s easy enough to find and the supermarket has very kindly done all the dirty work for you by chopping it up. I don’t bother with a béchamel sauce, opting instead for a mix of double cream and fish stock.

SERVES 4 PREP 10 MINUTES COOK 33 MINUTES

2 tablespoons butter

6 spring onions, chopped

2 x 400g packets fish pie mix

2 teaspoons cornflour

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

300ml double cream

200ml fish stock

150g cooked prawns

150g frozen peas, defrosted (optional) bunch of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

800g pre-cooked mashed potato (if mashing your own, you’ll need about 1kg potatoes to yield this amount of mash)

50g Parmesan cheese, grated handful of garlic croutons, bashed to uneven crumbs (optional) sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4. Put the butter and spring onions in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave for 3 minutes or until soft. Tip out into a 20 x 28cm baking dish.

Toss the fish pie mix with the cornflour and add to the dish with the spring onions. Combine the mustard, cream, fish stock, prawns, peas, most of the parsley and plenty of seasoning, then add the mixture to the pie dish and gently stir everything together to combine.

Spoon the mashed potato on top of the fish mixture and rough up the surface with a fork. Sprinkle over the Parmesan cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes until the pie is hot through and golden on top. Scatter with the crushed garlic croutons, if using, and the remaining parsley.

Serve immediately.

Serves 4 Prep 10 Minutes

COOK 2 HOURS + 10 MINUTES RESTING

1.5kg pork belly

2½ teaspoons fennel seeds, crushed

1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons fine sea salt

¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda FOR THE SWEET-AND-SOUR APPLE PICKLES

3 eating apples, cored and cut into matchsticks

1½ tablespoons cider vinegar

1½ tablespoons honey sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

MAKE AHEAD This can be made

2 days in advance, stored in the refrigerator, then reheated.

THE SHORTCUT Not preheating the oven saves time, and bicarb is a failsafe trick for achieving perfectly crisp skin without having to hang around the grill to monitor its progress.

Don’t bother trying to score the skin with a knife or a blade from the tool box; stabbing the skin with toothpicks takes 2 minutes versus 15 minutes trying to score through the thick skin with even your sharpest knife. The key to getting that ultracrisp skin is to mix a little bicarbonate of soda with salt and rub it onto the skin before putting the meat into a cold oven. This allows the pork and the oven to warm together which means unctuous fat layers and tender meat.

Make sure the surface of your pork is really dry – leave it uncovered in the refrigerator overnight, or use some paper towels to pat the surface dry if necessary. Use a couple of toothpicks or sharp skewers to prick the skin all over as many times as you can, working left to right, right to left, and up and down until it has been pricked many times – you don’t want to pierce the skin, simply poke the surface. Mix the crushed fennel seeds, chilli flakes and some black pepper with 1 teaspoon of the salt, then rub the mixture all over the meat side of the pork belly. Transfer it to a roasting tray (pan). Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the remaining 1 teaspoon of salt, then rub it all over the skin.

Put the tray into a cold oven and set the heat to 180°C/fan 160°C/gas 4. Roast the pork for 1½ hours, then increase the oven temperature to 220°C/fan 200°C/gas 8 and cook for a further 30 minutes. Remove the pork from the oven, brush off any white sediment that is on the skin and discard. Transfer the pork to a chopping board and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the sweet-and-sour apple pickles. Mix the chopped apples with the vinegar and honey, season and set aside until ready to serve.

To carve the pork, flip it over so it is skin-side down on the chopping board. Use a sharp knife to cut through the meat, then apply some pressure and let the knife break through the crackling. Serve immediately with the pickles.