This recipe is a great way to eat healthily and still feel like you’re having a treat. Admittedly a cheesy mashed potato topping is an obvious winning combination, but this comes close – packed full of flavour and with amazing textures, and the upshot is there’ll be no carb coma afterwards.
Ingredients
- 2 heads of broccoli
- 1 large cauliflower
- glug of rapeseed oil
- 1 white onion, finely diced
- 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
- 3 whole star anise
- 1 large bulb of fennel, roughly diced
- 1 large leek, sliced into 1 cm (½ in) loops
- 2 tablespoons plain (all-purpose) flour
- 7 fl oz (200 ml) white wine – optional
- 17 oz 2 cups (500 ml ) fish stock
- 10½ oz (300 g) sustainable smoked haddock, pin-boned and skinned (ask your fishmonger to do this), then chopped into generous chunks
- 10 oz 2 cups (280 g) frozen peas
- handful of finely chopped parsley
- 2¼ oz 2/3 cups (60 g) finely grated mature cheddar – leave this out if you’re aiming to be a bit healthier
How to Make It
- Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F/gas mark 4).
- Cut the broccoli and cauliflower into small florets of roughly the same size. Put in a roasting tin, drizzle with rapeseed oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 10–12 minutes until they start to crisp up.
- Meanwhile, put the onion, garlic, star anise, fennel and leek in a pan with a glug of oil. Season with salt and pepper, then cook for 3–4 minutes over medium heat until the onion is translucent. Stir in the flour, then add the white wine, if you’re using it, and let it bubble for 3 minutes (to cook off the alcohol). Add the fish stock and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until the sauce begins to thicken. Add the fish, peas and parsley, then take the pan off the heat, cover and let the fish cook in the hot sauce for 5–6 minutes.
- Drain the sauce from the pan and put to one side – you should have about 125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup). Tip the rest of the contents of the pan into a pie dish, and arrange the cauliflower and broccoli evenly on top. Pour a little sauce over the cauliflower and broccoli, followed by the grated cheese. Brown in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden and bubbling. Serve with the remaining sauce as ‘gravy’ on the side.
