Smoked haddock with creamed watercress

Serves 4

(Jason Lowe)

Smoked haddock is a great late breakfast or brunch ingredient; it just has that delicious savoury flavour and the taste is more subtle than that of kippers. There still seems to be a lot of that yellow dyed smoked haddock around which should be avoided as it's been commercially produced and for some reason made to looked smoked by dying it yellow.

About 500g smoked haddock
Milk for poaching
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 bay leaf
A couple of good handfuls of watercress
A good knob of butter
120ml double cream

Cut your haddock into 4 servings and place in a wide shallow saucepan. Cover with milk, add the bay leaf and season – not using too much salt, though. Bring to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes, then remove from the heat. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan, add the watercress and cook with a lid on for a minute, stirring a couple of times. Add the double cream and a little salt and cook on a high heat for a couple of minutes until the cream has reduced and is just coating the watercress.

To serve, remove the haddock from the milk with a slotted spoon on to a plate and carefully remove the skin. Spoon the watercress onto warmed serving plates and place the haddock on top.