Best prepared whilst playing the '7 Bach Meditations' album which infuses the process with positive energy. (View here)
Raw Ingredients:
Fish: Use 3 different pieces. Try - Salmon, haddock and cod.
Shellfish: A goodly amount of king prawns.
Potatoes
Onion
Garlic
Bacon
Flour
Butter
Cheddar cheese
Parmesan
Leek
Shitake Mushrooms
Milk
1. Chop 4 potatoes into small cubes. Really small. Add to pot of boiling water. Simmer for ten minutes. Drain and put to one side on plate.
2. Chop one onion into tiny cubes. Clean one entire bulb of garlic and press into crushed pile. Heat frying pan with butter. Shallow fry the onion and garlic until translucent. When ready, add the potato and mix evenly. Place on plate and put to one side. This will form the bottom and top layers of the dish.
3. Slice shitakes into fillet style pieces. Shallow fry in butter until tender. Put to one side on plate.
4. Grill four pieces of bacon until very well cooked and crispy. Allow to cool. Chop up into tiny pieces. Put to one side on plate.
5. Use frying pan with shallow base of butter to heat the prawns. Don't overcook. Just turn in the butter long enough to change color. Just a few minutes. Place on plate and put to one side.
6. Heat saucepan with enough milk to boil the fish parts. Add the fish to the simmering milk and leave to cook for about 5 minutes - until fish looks reasonably cooked through. Then extract fish in colander while reserving the fishy milk for later use.
7. Prepare your roux. Butter in saucepan - carefully add flour until you have a nice thick roux. Dont be shy - be sure to make enough.
8. Into your roux, carefully introduce some of the reserved fishy milk. Until you have a nice looking quantity of creamy looking fishy smelling off-white sauce.
9. Grate a pile of cheddar (don't be shy quantity) and a quarter of that amount of parmesan into two plates.
10. Chop leek (using common sense) and boil for 5 minutes. Place on plate to one side.
And now arrange the ingredients into the Cooking bowl. Use a proper oven bowl of reasonable depth and width for purpose.
1. I add about 1 third of the potato/onion/garlic to the base of the cooking dish, pressing it down to form a base layer.
2. Onto that - I place a layer of prawns. About one quarter of the total amount reseved.
3. Over that Place the milk boiled fish. Spread evenly. Over that place the rest of the prawns.
4. Over the top of the prawn layer - evenly spread the shitakes and the leek.
5. Now pour the roux/fishy milk mix into the bowl, covering everything inside until it reaches the level of the mushroom/leek top.
6. Now mix the chopped bacon into the remaining potato/onion/garlic mush and spread liberally over the top of the dish.
7. Now spread the grated cheeses over the top of that.
Note: I don't use salt at all at any stage in the preparation. But cracked black pepper goes well with the prawn layer and over the top of the cheese.
Place in oven - at around 170 degrees - and cook for 45 minutes. Top should be browned off.
Serve with a Fresh baguette, a cherry tomato and green leaf salad, and, preferably a chilled white wine.
