A fishing expedition – the pastry and the photos

As always you have “lid” options – for me it has to be puff or flaky pastry – here's my usual recipe if you want to make your own.

You will need a batch for each pie!

Fast flaky pastry

150g of unsalted butter – chilled in the freezer

220g plain flour

pinch of salt

8 tablespoons of ice cold water

Plan ahead - before you begin weigh out your butter, wrap it in foil and put it in the freezer – 30-40 minutes. Place the flour and salt in a mixing bowl. You'll need a cheese grater on stand-by. Remove the butter from the freezer and fold back the foil – it's easier to control when you grate the butter into a heap in the middle of the flour and salt. You can dip the butter into the flour to stop any sticking.

Using a round bladed knife mix the butter into the flour and salt. Sprinkle four tablespoons of water into the pastry and mix well. Add another four tablespoons and continue to mix. Finally use your hand to bring together – you're aiming for a clean bowl so no bits of pastry left in the bowl. Have a sheet of cling film ready – you can now use both hands to mould the pastry into whatever shape you require. Place on the cling film and wrap.

Rest the pastry in the fridge for 30 minutes before use or place the cling filmed pastry in a bag and freeze.

On a lightly floured surface roll out your pastry – dust your rolling pin too. Roll out as evenly as you can turning the pastry as it takes shape – always roll backwards and forwards and quarter turns so that it keeps to a circle. If you roll side to side you'll stretch the pastry and it will shrink when cooking!

Tip the filling into the pie dish. Egg wash the rim of the dish and then gently lift the pastry lid on top of the filling. The egg wash will glue the pastry in place and you can press the lid onto the filling gently. You can use a sharp knife to remove any excess pastry then, using a pastry fork edge the pie. Egg wash the pastry and add two cuts in the centre of the pastry to vent the pie.

Bake in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 for 40 minutes. I'd check after 20 minutes and turn the pie so as to give an even colour. It depends on your oven but I've found that even with new fan ovens the baking isn't always evenly browned.

There's always a plan B – cheat – buy puff pastry sheets – 320g x 2.

Here they are :

Yum!

Double yum!

Last but by no means least, here comes the pud!