Nigel Slater

Baked Potatoes with Smoked Haddock and Mustard

Serves 2 as a main course, with salad and a pudding

Ingredients:

4 baked potatoes as before
½ pound (225g) smokes haddock
1¼ cups double cream
2 tablespoons grain mustard
a palmful of parsley leaves, chopped

Method:
Put the smoked haddock in a shallow baking dish skin-side down. Season the cream with the mustard, parsley and a little salt and pepper and pour it over the haddock. Bake in the same oven as the potatoes until the flakes of the fish fall apart easily - about twenty minutes.

Break open the potatoes, scrape the flesh into a bowl, then return the empty skins to the oven to crisp a little if necessary. Mash the potato with the cream from the cooked fish, whipping it with a hand-held beater to get it smooth. Tear the flesh from the skin of the fish with a fork, keeping the flakes as whole as possible. Stir them into the creamed potato, check the seasoning, then pile back into the hot potato skins and place briefly under a hot grill until the peaks of potato start to crisp and color.