Smoked salmon hash

A quick and dirty breakfast dish. This is just perfect for Sunday mornings in bed with a tray, the papers and a very good friend. This hash is all made in one pan, salty from the salmon, studded with tart capers and stickily sweet from the sweet potatoes. A good squirt of lime juice to counter that sweetness and a spoonful of herby crème fraîche - who could ask for more?

If you do plan on making this for breakfast, it's worth chopping the potatoes and making the crème fraîche the night before so you can operate on autopilot in the morning without having to go anywhere near sharp knives.

To serve two (with some leftovers - we like leftovers round here), you'll need:

3 large sweet potatoes (make sure these are the ones with golden flesh)
3 large shallots
250g cold-smoked salmon
1 handful chives (plus a teaspoon to garnish)
1 handful parsley (plus a teaspoon to garnish)
½ handful tarragon
200g crème fraîche
2 heaped tablespoons rinsed capers
Juice of 2 limes
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Start by making the crème fraîche. Just stir in the chopped herbs, keeping some aside to garnish the finished dish, 1 tablespoon of the capers, 1 raw chopped shallot and the juice of a lime. Set aside in the fridge and stir before serving.

To make the hash, dice the peeled potatoes and cut the remaining shallots into slices. Fry in a large pan over a medium heat in the butter and olive oil mixture, stirring regularly, until the edges of the potato pieces are caramelising and turning a golden brown.

Check that the sweet potato is cooked through (poke with a chopstick to test for softness) and tip the salmon and remaining capers into the pan. Toss with a wooden spoon until the salmon is all opaque, then sprinkle over the juice of the remaining lime. Check for seasoning. Spoon the finished hash into serving bowls, dress with the reserved herbs, add a tablespoon of the crème fraîche and top off with a fried egg.

Fisherman's pie

They tell me it's brain food. I remain unconvinced - I am absolutely no better at doing sums than I was before I cooked this, but I am deliciously full and thinking hard about marine biology.

This is a lovely take on fisherman's pie, a thousand miles away from any variant you may have eaten in the school dining hall. Some of the fish is fresh, some smoked, and this gives it a deep, warm background without overdoing the smoky flavour. Sweet peas and prawns are balanced by a hit of lemon juice and nutmeg, and creamy mash makes a golden lid for the whole thing.

Although this is a fish dish, you'll find it keeps well overnight in the fridge. This amount made two filling suppers for two greedy people with a sharply dressed green salad. I used frozen haddock fillets here, but you can use any firm, flaky white fish, frozen or fresh.

To serve four, you'll need:

500g haddock fillets
200g smoked haddock
100g smoked salmon
100g peeled prawns, raw if possible
150g butter
50g plain flour
570ml milk
50g frozen peas
2 eggs
2 teaspoons capers in white wine vinegar
Juice of ½ lemon
A few gratings of nutmeg
1kg potatoes (choose a floury variety like King Edward)
3 tablespoons double cream
Cheddar cheese to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 200° C (400° F).

Lay the haddock (defrosted if frozen) and smoked haddock in the baking dish you plan to make the pie in - it should have a capacity of between 1.5 and 2 litres. Pour over half the milk and dot with 25g of butter. Season with plenty of pepper and bake for 20 minutes. Pour the liquid from the baking dish into a measuring jug, top up with the remaining milk and reserve. Remove any skin or bones from the cooked fish and flake it into large pieces in the baking dish.

Hard-boil the eggs, and quarter them. Combine them in the baking dish with the flaked fish, drained capers, the frozen peas, the prawns (raw or cooked, but defrosted if frozen) and the smoked salmon. (I used Waitrose's flakes of hot-smoked salmon - if you can't find hot-smoked salmon use the regular variety and use scissors to cut it into bite-sized pieces.)

Peel the potatoes and set them to boil as usual for the mashed potato topping. While the potatoes are boiling, melt 75g of the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook over a medium-low flame, stirring, for four minutes. Add the milk and fish cooking liquid a little at a time, stirring well after every addition until the sauce thickens. Continue until all the milk mixture is incorporated, and bring to a low simmer until the sauce thickens again. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and stir in the lemon juice and a grating of nutmeg. Pour the sauce over the ingredients in the baking dish.

Mash the potatoes well with the cream, 50g of the butter, another generous grating of nutmeg and plenty of salt and pepper. Spread or pipe the potatoes over the ingredients in the baking dish, and sprinkle with Cheddar cheese.

Bake for 40 minutes, until the cheesy top is a golden brown.