Jamie Oliver's Fish Pie

Today, Sunday, was the final of the Twenty20 World Cup. As it started at 4.30 pm and lasted around 3 hours it was clear that dinner was going to have to be something that looked after itself.

I have always thought I make a mean fish pie. I poach mixed fish in seasoned milk, turn that milk into parsley sauce, add chopped hard boiled eggs and peas, top with mash and grated cheese and bake for about half an hour. It is virtually foolproof and always goes down well. The cat likes it too. However I have been hearing rave reviews from all quarters of Jamie's Fish Pie in his Ministry of Food book.

I read the recipe, it looked much less faff than mine. It also used a lot more fish than mine and I could see it was going to cost a lot more than mine! However I was feeling flush - a friend had needed a taxi to Paddington at 6 am and had paid me handsomely - so I took myself off to Morrison's (who do good fish at half the price of Waitrose) and bought exactly what Jamie suggested. King prawns, undyed smoked haddock and salmon fillet. The recipe was a doddle. My only deviation was to grate the vegetables in my processor (I didn't want bloodstains in the pie) and to use ready-grated cheese. I added spinach as Jamie suggested. And I covered the mash with the remainder of the cheese too. I served it with spring greens.

It was really, really tasty. There were 3 of us. It would feed at least 6! Chris thought it was miles better than my usual effort. Grrrrr! Mind you he hadn't twigged there was chilli in it or he wouldn't have said that. And the chilli made it so good I think.

And of course we stuffed the Aussies in the cricket. A very satisfying day all round.