The Sunday Roast: Rosti Topped Fish Pie

During my blogging break, I have rediscovered the kitchen. Really cooking is like writing. Like every creative process there are skills to be learnt and knowledge to be gained. Then we begin tinkering. I take something that someone has already created, I read what other people have changed and I adapt as I see fit. Sometimes my adaptations are caused by lack of ingredients: mustard for horseradish, tikka massala paste for harissa. Sometimes at the end, its so far removed from the recipe that about the only thing I've kept the same are the quantities, and then again a few grams here or there.

After tinkering comes eating/editing. Is this good? What if we tried it this way or put more of this and less of that? Like writing, the eating process is best done with a good editing partner. Usually by the time I sit down to eat, I'm so hungry I'd eat anything, but the person I cook for is more exigent.

Then you go back and cook it again.

What you cook is never the same twice and sometimes it is great and sometimes it is terrible.

I have never created my own recipe, but I'm beginning to think that really, it's all been cooked before. Old Gordon, Jamie and the rest are just really recreating. They add something special and maybe spicy, but there is another version of it somewhere. In writing that something special and spicy that you add is your voice and how you mix the ingredients.

So now I am off to mix some ingredients together. I am thoroughly in love with this terribly British site. A smile spreads across my face when the weekly newsletter arrives. This dish is simple, quick (as is everything I try from here) and still tasty and filling.

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