Fish Pie and Apple Crumble

Saturday was a proper winter's day; all blue skies and biting cold. We took shelter in the hothouses at Kew peering at holey Henry Moore's sculptures through Victorian glass with eighteenth century ferns towering above us. The day cried out for comfort food. A Lox and Cream Cheese Brick Lane Beigel, whilst a perfect example of its type, eaten huddled on a bench with a coot for company did not cut the mustard. We headed home for fish pie and peas to be followed by a bramley apple crumble.

Fish Pie has rules and they differ with everyone you talk too. In this house there has to be both smoked and unsmoked fish, some sort of shellfish and lots of buttered leeks. I think parsley should go in too, but this time the herb lost out to my wife's ambivalence. It goes without saying it should have a thick lid of firm mashed potatoes (butter, salt and pepper only), criss-crossed with a fork to make a crust-able pattern on the top. Peas on the side are obligatory but anything else added inside or out runs the risk of 'messing about': capers, tarragon, mushrooms, boiled eggs are just a few of the options other Fish Pie makers advocate. None made it in to ours. In the end it was just the smoked hadddock, some cod, a handful of mussels (their broth giving a welcome lightness to the fishy bechamel), a packet of brown shrimps and the leeks. It was wonderful.

We finished with apple crumble, and here we did gild the lily. A hearty slug of armagnac went in with the bramleys and pine nuts and almonds added a delicious savoury, nutty note to the crumble. After the restraint of the fish pie making, it felt good to mess about with a recipe and win.