This pie is a traditional Cornish dish from the village of mousehole,
not a typical dish you would see on a restaurant menu due to its appearance but i love it. Here i have added one of my favorite summer ingredients

Samphire is a marshland grass a bit like asparagus in texture but full of beautiful salty flavor. It grows by the sea and should be available from a good fish supplier or even better head down to the seaside and pick your own, it will be fresh and tender and hey its free!
One of my earliest food memories was on a family holiday to Norfolk heading down to the beach and picking handfulls of this glorious stuff. We would cook it in a beach hut with some cockles freshly harvested from the beach.
The freshness and the flavor has stuck with me to this day, so simple but with food as fresh as that its all you need.

serves 8

8 sardines whole
2 leeks diced into 1cm pieces
2 Maris piper potatoes diced into 1cm pieces
4 rashers of smoked bacon sliced into 1cm lardons
1pt of milk
200g of mature Cheddar grated
1 egg beaten
1tbs English mustard
250g samphire
500g of short crust pastry (make your own or buy)
8' spring mold cake tin
butter for greasing the tin and for frying

Firstly grease your cake tin and sprinkle a little flour on to the surface to prevent your pie sticking to your tin.

Now roll out your pastry nice and thin around 2mm, run your hand over the pastry to check its even, you will be able to tell by touch any bits that are thicker and need more rolling out.

Now lay it in your cake tin pressing the pastry into the sides, ensuring there will be enough pastry to make a lid. Trim the pastry leaving a one inch overhang, this will prevent the pastry shrinking inside your pie.

Now chill to firm your pastry up again, fork the bottom to prevent the pastry rising.

Next you will need to blind bake the pie case take a sheet of cling film and line the pastry case with it, this may need a couple of layers. Fill with rice or dried beans and blind bake for 20 Min's at 180c till golden brown.

While the pie case is baking prep your sardines, you want the fillets and the heads for the pie. I've found the easiest way is with a strong pair of scissors to take the tail and any fins off then slice down the belly of the fish with the scissors and keep cutting against the spine till the fillets come off. Remove the head as well and give a good wash.

Now for the pie filling, take a sauce pan with a little butter on a medium heat and start frying off your bacon till brown, add your leeks and potatoes stir till coated in the flavorsome smokey fat from the bacon.

Add your milk and let the potatoes simmer till cooked through, as they cook the starch will start thickening the liquid.

Now stir in your cheese and heat till its all melted, season your filling with salt and pepper keep tasting it till your happy. Remember the samphire is very salty so under season the pie mix.

Start filling your pie with the mixture to a third of the way up then layer halve the sardine fillets and samphire, add the rest of the mixture topped with another layer of the remaining sardines and samphire.

Roll out your remaining pastry and cut to form a lid for the pie, making 8 equally spaced slices, large enough to hold the fish heads.

Lay the lid over the pie pressing down the sides sealing the pie and poke the heads into the pre-sliced slits looking upwards (hence the name stargazer). Brush the top with beaten egg to give a golden finish.

Bake your pie at 180c for another 20 Min's as the pie cooks natural oils and flavors from the heads will seep through the pie.

When the pie is done slice and serve, if you have any samphire left blanch it for 30 seconds in boiling water and mix through some potato salad to serve with the pie.

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BRISTOL & BATH // 18 MAY 2012

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