A comical fish pie - The Little Hastings Fish Cook Book(s)

#FiftyTwoCookbooks, Week Nine

Not all the books for this project were chosen at random. About half enjoy their inclusion thanks to a connection to a person, a time, a place or a memory. They serve as visual, readable and edible reminders of people, places and situations that I hold dear. 

When the books were chosen on January 1st this year, I knew that at some point in March it was highly likely that I would be on the south coast, cooking in a space that was some distance from my usual home on Mill Road: The Sleeper Store in Hastings (well - St. Leonards, actually). As a nod to this, The Little Hastings Fish Cook Books, volumes one, two and three were allotted their place in the calendar on the assumption that I would probably be within striking distance of a fish purveyor whose wares could have been on the plate within just a few hours of being in the cold waters of the English channel. 

As things transpired, the weeks didn’t quite line up, so rather than being able to buy fish directly from the boats that caught it, I’m still in the famously land-locked county of my home in Cambridgeshire. 

I rarely cook fish these days. Back in the Hole in the Wall years, the best fish I have ever had the pleasure of cooking (and eating) was couriered up to me four days a week from a supplier in Cornwall. It arrived in perfect condition, looking like it had just been plucked from the deep blue only moments before, and it was a joy to prep, cook and serve. I was definitely spoiled by this. Now that neither meat nor fish features on my menu at Vanderlyle, I don’t have the facility to phone up a fishmonger and just a few hours later find impeccable produce on the doorstep - so consequently, I don’t often bother buying or cooking fish unless I can actually see tidal waters which, from rural Cambridgeshire, is something I hope is still a long way off. 

But commitment to the project prevented any cheating: no shuffling round of books or juggling recipes. 

The Little Hastings Fish Cook Books are a happy little trio of books consisting predominantly of recipes submitted by residents of the seaside town, with the occasional recipe from a local chef or restaurant thrown in for good measure. The introduction suggested that on asking for submissions, the number of recipes for fish pie significantly outpaced anything else, so much so that the editors had to specifically request that no further recipes for that particular comforting cuddle of a dish be submitted. 

This came as no surprise to me. Fish pie seems to be something of a crowd pleaser, and even avowed non-fish eaters tend to swoon at the prospect of several types of fish bobbing around in a creamy sauce topped with rich mashed potato and melted cheese. I thought I’d seen all possible options when it came to fish pie: cream-based or white sauce? Eggs or no eggs? Heavy on the herbs or resolutely anti-green? At Vanderlyle we even came up with a vegetable-based one during lockdown as part of our to-go offering, where we subbed various mushrooms for fish and named it fauxsh pie. I turned the little book’s pages, committed to cooking something more adventurous - but then I came across a solitary fish pie recipe that had been submitted by none other than Vic Reeves. 

I’ve long been a fan of Reeves (or Jim Moir, as he goes by in day-to-day life) - his version of ‘Dizzy’, singing guest vocals with The Wonder Stuff, was the first cassette single I ever bought (I re-listened recently and it remains an absolute banger of a tune) and when we came back to school on Monday mornings, Shooting Stars was the only permitted topic of conversation. Also the Reeves & Mortimer ‘Masterchef’ sketch, in which Reeves plays a creepy, floating giant-foreheaded facsimile of Lloyd Grossman complete with forks for fingers, remains a complete nailed-on masterpiece. 

The blurb explained that they’d made an exception to their “No fish pies” rule for this particular creation because as you’d expect, Reeves’s recipe contains a flash of genius: he adds a base layer of mushy peas to the pie itself which then acts as a tasty mattress for the fish, sauce and mash on top of it. Now, peas - either mushed or unmushed - are always a natural support act for a fish pie, but never did I think of including them in a literal sense. In the pie’s bed they meld and marry with the sauce, creating something far greater than the sum of its parts.

 As for the rest of the recipe, I riffed on my usual ingredients and method. A white sauce made from the milk used to poach smoked haddock and cod. A few king prawns. Plenty of dill, parsley and chervil. A few capers and cornichons. The zest and juice of a lemon. Mashed potato and plenty of grated cheddar. 

Much like a lasagne, a fish pie is a labour of love. It’s a multi-pan dish that fills the sink with washing up - items that are, quite frankly, a pain to clean (not the potato ricer, please!) but my god, is it worth the effort. A fish pie warms and delights and fills the house with waves of comforting smells. And now, armed with the knowledge that the peas are far better when placed in the pie itself, there will always be one less pan to wash up. Thanks, Vic. 

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Normal service will resume at Vanderlyle post pop-up from the start of next month, and tables for April are available to book right now. If you’d like to dine with us in May, tables will be available to book from 4th April.