I ♥ Jamie Oliver. I, like most people, have loads of cookbooks. Some of them I bought because they were on the clearance table at Borders. Some I bought because I’d like to cook Japanese or Indian or Thai or Malaysian or insertcounrtyhere. Some I bought because I’d seen the cooking show on TV. Some came w/ Wal when we moved in together. The Jamie Oliver books fall in the last category. I keep telling myself as I peruse my cookbooks that I don’t like Jamie any more, that our romance is over. Unfortunately he’s like the guy you can’t quit even though you know he’s bad for you- cheese and double cream, need I say more? I wanted to make fish pie and looked through all my cookbooks and couldn’t find one I liked. I didn’t want to check the internet because I’ve been doing too much of that and neglecting the books I’ve paid good money for. We only have his first three books but I think I’m going to have to pick up the ones we are missing. When we lived in the US we used them a lot. I have yet to not like one of his recipes and after last week where I tried 3 new recipes and was disappointed by all three (one I couldn’t even eat) I think I should just stick with what works.
It was one of the best dishes I have ever made. I ALWAYS find fault with what I cook- even when it really is good I always think I can make it better. Well last night I thought and thought how I could make it better and came to the decision that it was perfect. The recipe came from The Return of the Naked Chef
Ingredients
5 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 2.5cm/1″ squares
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 free-range eggs
2 large handfuls of fresh spinach
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, halved and finely chopped
extra virgin olive oil
about 285ml/1/2 pint double cream
2 good handfuls of grated mature
Cheddar or Parmesan cheese (I used extra extra mature cheddar)
juice of 1 lemon
1 heaped tsp English mustard
1 large handful of flat leaf parsley, finely chopped (left this out)
455g/1lb haddock or cod fillet, skin removed, pin-boned and sliced into strips (I used a undyed smoked haddock, pollock and salmon mixture)
nutmeg (optional)
Method
Preheat oven to 230c/450f/Gas 8
1 Put the potatoes into salted boiling water and bring back to the boil for two minutes.
2 Carefully add the eggs to the pan and cook for another eight minutes until hard boiled, by which time the potatoes should also be cooked.
3 At the same time, steam the spinach in a colander above the pan. This will only take a minute.
4 When the spinach is done, remove from the colander and gently squeeze any excess moisture away. Drain the potatoes in the colander. Remove the eggs, cool under cold water, peel and quarter them. Put to one side.
5 In a separate pan, slowly fry the onion and carrot in olive oil for about five minutes, add the double cream and bring just to the boil.
6 Remove from the heat and add the cheese, lemon juice, mustard and parsley.
7 Put the spinach, fish and eggs into an appropriately sized earthenware dish and mix together, pouring over the creamy vegetable sauce. Drain and mash the cooked potatoes - add a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and a touch of nutmeg if you like. Spread on top of the fish.
8 Don’t bother piping it to make it look pretty. Place in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are golden. Serve with some nice peas or greens, baked beans and tomato ketchup.
Wal was in Turkey last week and came home bearing gifts- his customer gave him a Turkish tea set including tea.
The bag of tea is MASSIVE. I don’t know how we’re going to drink it all but I suppose we’ll give it a good old try!
