Fish pie for Good Friday

And a fun dessert for this Easter weekend

This image is from my cookbook ENJOY and was shot by my friend Sonya Nagels

Easter is my favourite holiday of the year. For us it’s a quiet four day weekend that is about family, sweet traditions and some delicious meals. Also, the last of the outdoor chores - I’ve got a picnic table to sand and repaint if the weather cooperates.

Odd as it may sound, my family likes to tease me, I much prefer Easter to Christmas.

While Christmas can be a truly mad time of year, heaving with expectations and to-do lists, Easter has become the time of year when I actually have the time and drive to make some special meals and really enjoy family time.

As well as the usual chocolatey festivities, Easter in our house is for gifts of pyjamas, socks and snuggly things. It’s a nice way to mark the start of the cooler weather. Our daughters really look forward to a new set of Winter pyjamas on Sunday morning along with some sleep socks or a fluffy sleep mask or a cosy hot water bottle cover or whatever little thing is waiting for them that year. My mum did this when I was growing up and it’s a tradition I like carrying on.

We celebrate Easter in an entirely non-religious way but I was raised catholic and eating fish on Good Friday has stayed with me. For me, it’s always fish pie. It’s one of my favourite meals.

I make my fish pie with a mix of fresh and smoked fish. There MUST be quartered boiled eggs nestled in there. Also capers, lots of fresh herbs, lemon zest and some wholegrain mustard. This recipe has peas, though I don’t add them every time, you can decide what suits you.

Last year I made an excellent ice cream with fresh oranges, vanilla and Easter eggs. It turned out beautifully. I’m sharing that recipe too.

Have a restful and delicious Easter. Kelly x

Kelly’s fish pie

Serves 4-6

1 medium onion, diced

2 large garlic cloves, finely diced

50g butter

⅓ cup plain flour

750mls milk (or a 50/50 mix of milk and low-salt chicken stock)

3 tablespoons capers, drained

1 teaspoon grainy mustard

Handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped

Handful fresh dill, roughly chopped

Zest of 1 lemon

300g smoked fish, bones and skin discarded

350g firm white fish, cut into bite sized pieces

3/4 cup frozen peas

3 eggs, hard-boiled and peeled

3 cups mashed potato

1 cup panko bread crumbs

Butter to top

Sea salt and cracked black pepper

Olive oil for sautéing

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Heat a generous glug of olive oil in a saucepan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for a further minute. Add the butter and let it melt before adding the flour and mixing well. Cook the butter and flour for 1-2 minutes without browning. Add the milk in stages and whisk continuously to eliminate any lumps. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 3-5 minutes more until the sauce is nicely thickened.

Add the capers, mustard, parsley, dill and lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well. Remove from the heat.

Break the smoked fish into bite sized pieces and fold through the sauce along with the fresh fish and peas. Spoon into an oven-proof dish. Cut the hard boiled eggs into quarters and scatter over the top.

Top with the mashed potato and then the bread crumbs. Dot some butter over the top to make sure the breadcrumbs end up crunchy and golden.

Bake for roughly 30-35 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling hot.

Leave to sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Orange, vanilla and Easter egg ice cream

Serves 6-8

I bought an ice cream maker during one of the lockdowns of 20/21. That was the kind of thing you did then. I don’t use it all the time but every time I do, I’m thrilled by the end result.

I wrote this recipe last year when we had a pile of easter eggs my kids had lost interest in. Around this time of year we also get our tiny yearly crop from our dwarf orange tree ripen. The tree only yields about 8-10 oranges a year but they are AMAZING.

I threw all these together with some proper vanilla, egg yolks and brown sugar to make a really delicious ice cream.

300ml fresh cream

300ml milk

95g brown sugar

1 vanilla bean (could also use 2 teaspoons qood quality vanilla paste)

2 egg yolks

Zest of 1 range

100g roughly chopped chocolate eggs

(Place the bowl of your ice cream maker into the freezer the day before starting this recipe.)

Add the cream, milk and half the sugar to a small saucepan. If using a vanilla bean, slit this down the centre to expose the seeds and and the bean into a few pieces. Add this to the saucepan. Heat slowly until very hot but not boiling.

Whisk together the egg yolks and remaining sugar. Add 1/4 cup of the hot milk to this and whisk together. Add another 1/4 cup of hot milk and whisk again.

Add the egg mixture into the main saucepan and whisk briskly to combine. Place this over a medium heat, bring to a simmer and stir constantly. Cook for a few minutes until the custard will coat the back of a spoon when dipped into it.

Remove from the heat. Pour through a strainer into a large bowl or jug, whisk through the orange zest and place in the fridge to cool completely.

Churn the cooled custard in your ice cream maker according the appliance instructions. Mine takes about 20 minutes to get to a soft serve consistancy. At this point I slowly add the chopped chocolate to the machine. Keep going until you have the texture you want. Spoon the ice cream into a container and store in the freezer until ready to serve.