Smoked Haddock and Egg Pie

January is when I make this most. The dark comes early and the kitchen is the warmest room in the house. There's a piece of smoked haddock in the fridge, bought from the fishmonger at Saturday's market, still wrapped in its paper, smelling of salt and woodsmoke. That smell is already half the meal.

This is simpler than a full fish pie. No prawns, no salmon, no white wine, no fuss. Just good smoked haddock, eggs boiled so the yolks are still a little jammy at the centre, and a parsley sauce made with the milk youpoached the fish in. The mash goes on top, gets roughed up with a fork, and the oven does the rest. We're only making dinner.

I've always thought of this as a pie for people you don't need to impress. The kind of thing you put in the middle of the table with a spoon and let everyone help themselves. There are few better feelings than watching someone dig through the golden potato to find the egg underneath, that small moment of discovery in an otherwise ordinary evening.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago: haddock, eggs, parsley, Tuesday. It didn't need any more than that. The smell of it baking was the rest of the story.