I’ve learned to like this dish again, after avoiding it for many years. I think my avoidance was something to do with the awful version I got served for school dinners at primary school for so long.

Fish pie can be a bit finicky, but mostly is quite straight forward. I tried to be a little too clever and added squid, which I don’t think I’ll try again. I don’t think it really added much to the dish and the texture of squid doesn’t really go with the creamy nature of this comfort dish.

Before cooking the fish, you need to start cooking the potatoes for the mash to go on top of the fish pie.

In addition to the squid, I cooked fillets of cod, haddock (well, I meant to add haddock, but sort of forgot!) and prawns in a pint and a half of semi-skimmed milk and 250ml of single cream. In the milky, creamy mixture, I added a couple of bay leaves, some peppercorns, a few cloves and a sprinkling of nutmeg. You can use full cream milk and double cream instead, but that’s a little too calorific for my liking and this version still works very well.

The fish goes in for about 10 mins and the (pre-cooked) prawns in for the last couple of minutes. Once cooked, drain the liquid off through a sieve or colander, removing the bay leaves etc, but retain it, as it’s needed for the sauce. Flake the fish by hand, once it’s cooled, removing any skin and arrange in the bottom of a baking dish, with the prawns.

Melt some butter in a pan and add 100g of plain flour to make a roue. Cook for a minute and then add some of the retained milk/cream mixture that the fish was cooked in. Keep adding the liquid until you get a nice sauce which is not too thick, but a lot thicker than it was to begin with. Add some chopped parsley at the end, and pour over the fish in the baking dish.

Mash the potatoes and beat in an egg yolk. The egg yolk will give a nice glaze to the top of the pie. Spread evenly over the top of the fish and sauce and lightly run a fork over the top for effect (or etch your name, a fish, whatever you want, really).

Stick in the oven for about 20 mins on gas mk 7 or until it goes light brown on top and then it’s ready to eat! I cooked peas and asparagus to go with it, which I think complement fish pie very nicely indeed.