These rich and delicious dishes will come out of the oven piping hot, crisp, golden and urging you to go for second
helpings, writes DOMINI KEMP

PHEW! WE MADE IT. Out of the depths of the endless January and back to some rich and delicious dishes that will come out of the oven piping hot, crisp, golden and urging you to go for second helpings. These recipes for haddock gratin and chicken and leek pie come from Lucas Hollweg’s beautiful book, Good Things to Eat, which is full of novel twists on old favourites. I’m a fan of the type of food he makes, but his instructions can seem a little long-winded and overly complex. So, true to my own style, I’ve heavily chopped the bits you simply don’t need to do. He’s very British in that heavy-on-the-cream-and-butter type of food, but after a month’s purging, my family greeted both these dishes with open arms.

One recipe is made with a nice and simple bechamel sauce, the other with a cream reduction. The recipe for the haddock gratin calls for 500g of baby spinach that gets wilted down. This is fine, but frozen spinach is perfect for this kind of thing, as long as you thaw it out and squeeze the heck out of it. I find the best way to do this is to leave it in the fridge overnight, then take it out of its pack, wrap it up in a really clean tea towel and squeeze like mad. Yes, your tea towel will be a wretched shade of green, but it’s worth it as this kind of gratin dish is totally ruined by any sort of excess liquid swirling around the fish and turning a tasty topping into some sort of drenched, savoury sponge.

We used a combination of smoked haddock and chunks of white fish, possibly some cod and hake. I don’t know what else the fishmonger stuck in the bag. I asked for 600g of fish chunks, no skin, no bones, and wandered off to buy some veg. I came back for my little bundle and that was that.

The other recipe uses chicken thighs that have no skin and no bone. There’s no browning of the chicken involved, just a little gentle poaching. Thighs work so well in a pie as they remain deliciously unctuous and never dry out. I know nearly everyone prefers breast, but even if you have slightly finicky folk who refuse to eat anything but the normally dried-out breasts, don’t tell them. They’ll consider your chicken pie incredibly delicious and will wonder how those melt-in-your-mouth chicken pieces didn’t dry out.

I also decided just to top this with pastry rather than encase it, mainly because I find pastry in a pie that’s full of oozing sauce always goes a bit too soggy and is a waste of calories. I’d rather save them up for the delicious filling and the right amount of golden brown and dry pastry that contrast beautifully with what’s underneath.

Chicken, leek and tarragon pie

Serves 4

100ml white wine

200ml chicken stock

1 bay leaf

1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed

2 leeks, sliced 1 cm thick

8 boned, skinned chicken thighs

Big knob butter

About 1 big tbsp flour

100ml cream

Tarragon leaves, roughly chopped

2 tsps Dijon mustard

50g cheddar, grated

Salt and pepper

100g puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

Heat an oven to 180 degrees/gas 4. Heat the wine, chicken stock, bay leaf and garlic together in a large saucepan. When it’s about to simmer, add the leeks and chicken. Bring to the boil and simmer for a minute, then take off the heat and leave it to cool down. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and add the flour. Cook for a couple of minutes and then add ladles of the cooking liquid that the chicken is steeping in (about 200ml in total). When it’s simmering, add the cream, tarragon and Dijon mustard and mix well. Let it bubble and add more of the stock, if necessary, until you have a nice thick sauce. Using a slotted spoon, move the leeks and chicken to a large bowl. Mix the sauce with the chicken and leeks and then add the cheddar. Season lightly, then pour into a pie or gratin dish. Set it aside while you roll out the pastry.

Cover the pie mix with the pastry. Tuck the edges inside the dish and prick the top with a fork, about 10 times. Brush generously with beaten egg and bake for about 45 minutes until golden brown. The sauce may bubble up, so during cooking you may have to slide a knife between the rim of the pastry and the gratin dish to let the liquid back down. Serve with a big salad.

Smoked haddock and spinach gratin

Serves 4

600g fish chunks

2 bay leaves

Squeeze lemon juice

250ml cream

100g Parmesan, grated

1 tbsp wholegrain mustard

Few grates nutmeg

Black pepper

500g baby spinach or 1,450g (approx) bag of leaf spinach, defrosted

Two knobs of butter

50g breadcrumbs

Heat an oven to 180 degrees/gas 4. If you are using only smoked haddock, put the fish in a small saucepan and cover with some boiling water, bay leaves, pepper and lemon. Cook very lightly. If you are using other fish, you probably don’t need to do this. This light “bath” just helps get rid of excess smokiness. Drain the fish and set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the cream, bay leaves, and lemon juice on the stove until simmering. Keep an eye on it, but reduce by a third. Stir in the Parmesan and mustard, plus a few flecks of ground nutmeg, and set aside. Saute the spinach with a knob of butter and, if using fresh spinach, then add a few flecks of water. Drain and squeeze dry and spread out into a gratin dish. Put the haddock or other fish on top and pour the reduced cream mixture over it. Sprinkle with breadcrumbs and dot with the butter. Bake for 35 minutes until golden brown.

Domini recommends

Spanish Point Sea Vegetables: we all know there's plenty of good nutrients in seaweed, so these nifty bags of "sea vegetables" are great for sprinkling on salads, soups and stews. See spanishpointseaveg.iefor more info and stockists