One Flame Fishy Dish

My favourite evening meal fishy dish is the flexible fish pie, generally made with mash as a topping and with a mixture of white fish and tinned kippers (no bones, loads of flavour). Next to that comes tonight's fish fest, the equally flexible chowder, another one pot and thus one flame extravaganza.

As with just about every soup I make it begins with frying some chopped onion in butter, to which equally finely chopped veg as available in the fridge and shelves will be added: tonight I'd guess carrot, red pepper, and celery. As the garden still has a little stand of par-cel some of that will be chopped super fine with a mezzoluna to be added near the end of cooking. A mixture of chicken or veg stock (if I stir myself I can actually defrost some ham stock which goes equally well, otherwise it is from a cube today) and milk is added, then chunky diced potatoes (either waxy to keep the shape or floury to collapse nicely, it doesn't matter) dropped in to cook (best not to fry them even briefly with the veg, they seem to take longer to cook in the liquid that way) for about 15 minutes, along with defrosted pollack fillet and about a cupful of frozen sweetcorn. A crushed garlic clove gives a nice edge, and lots of pepper.

It is economical - I will only use about £1.25 of fish, and the rest of the ingredients won't take the total above £2.50 - and pretty virtuous, made with  semi-skimmed milk, but the juices are fabulous, perfect to soak up with thick slices - more like slabs - of buttered brown bread. Three of us will easily see off a small loaf, so add £0.50p (Morrison's offer on exceedingly tasty seeded wholemeal, £1 for two small loaves).

This will be the New Year's resolution (at least) once a week fish dish for our evening meal; as Saturday's homemade Chinese was veggie I only have one more non-meat dish to keep to my programme. We won't be short of protein, however, Sunday lunch was top rump wet roasted, and a turkey thigh joint (top bargain and very tasty) plain roasted beside it.

That latter meal was not exactly Parson Woodforde, who would regularly have rabbit smothered in onions, chicken, pig's face, a leg of mutton with caper sauce, and a piece of bacon or similar for workaday dinners, but two joints for £12 can seem more generous than one for £15. And we have the remains left for sandwiches, though the thicker of two leftover pieces of turkey removed from the table at the end of the meal didn't make it intact to the kitchen, mysteriously.