One of the best vegetables in the world is samphire, also known as seabeans. Steamed for 5 minute with a dot of butter, it’s divinely sea-ish, needing no added salt, with an almost pasta-like texture to the tooth. Needless to say, it goes very well with fish, especially a super luxurious creamy dish like this one. It's only available from May to July; the rest of the year we serve it with spinach. We've been making this pie in terracota dishes which are 15cm in diameter x 5 cm high (see illustration)

450ml Veloute

600g mixed fresh fish – choose from farmed cod, salmon, haddock and brill and add a couple of cooked prawns per person

200g smoked cod or haddock

Half a lemon

A few sprigs of fresh tarragon, chopped

1 tbsp fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped

1.5 kg Desiree potatoes, or whatever your favourite mashy tats are

A little milk and butter for the mash

2 large egg yolks

40g grated cheddar cheese combined with 40g breadcrumbs or crumbled oat biscuits as topping

• Make the veloute

• Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4.

• Cut the fish into bite sized pieces, and season. Place into 4 individual heatproof dishes.

• Mix the veloute with a squeeze of lemon, and the chopped herbs Pour over the fish.

• Meanwhile, boil the potatoes, and mash with the milk and butter. Stir in the egg yolks, and either pipe it onto the fish mixture, or spoon on carefully, smoothing with a spoon, or grooving with a fork

• Put the dishes in the hot oven, and cook for 10 minutes. At the 10 minute mark, sprinkle the cheese and breadcrumb topping to completely cover the potato. Bake for another 15 minutes, until it’s bubbling and golden.

• Place the terracotta dishes on a dining plate, serve with samphire, peas or spinach