Smoked Haddock Chowder

Lay the haddock skin-side down in a wide pan, cutting the fillets to fit in a single layer.

Pour over the milk and the water, which should just cover the fish.

Drop in the bay leaves.

Bring it up slowly over 8-10 minutes, to the point where the surface trembles and steam rises but no bubble breaks.

Never let the milk boil with the fish in it. Boiled milk splits into grains sitting in a thin liquid, and smoked haddock held at a boil tightens and goes woolly within a couple of minutes.

Take the pan off the heat, cover it and stand it for 5 minutes, which finishes the fish in the residual heat.

Lift the fish out onto a plate with a fish slice.

Strain the poaching milk into a jug and discard the bay leaves.

Peel the skin off the fish, which should come away in one piece.

Break the flesh into large flakes and run your fingertips over every one of them, feeling for pin bones. Smoked haddock is boned inconsistently, and a bone found in a spoonful of soup is the only thing anyone will remember about it.

Melt the butter in a heavy pan over medium-low heat.

Cook the leek for 6-8 minutes, stirring now and then, until it has collapsed and gone soft without colouring.

Add the diced potato and turn it through the butter.

Pour in the strained poaching milk.

Simmer very gently for 12-15 minutes, with the surface barely moving, until a knife tip slides into a piece of potato with no resistance.

Crush about a third of the potato against the side of the pan with the back of a spoon.

That is the whole thickening. Floury potato falls apart into the milk and gives the soup its body, which is why no flour goes near this pan and why a waxy potato leaves it thin. The bechamel sauce in this collection is the other route to the same thickness, and it is the wrong one here.

Pour in the cream and warm it through for 2 minutes, still short of a simmer.

Slide the fish flakes in and take the pan off the heat.

Let them warm in the soup for a minute rather than cooking them again. They are already done, and a second simmer shreds them to nothing.

Season with the ground peppercorns.

Taste before adding any salt at all. Smoked haddock is cured, and between the fish and the milk this often needs none.

Ladle into warm bowls.

Scatter the chives over.

Serve with the lemon wedges, and squeeze one in if a bowl tastes rich rather than savoury.

Cool any left over in a shallow container, refrigerate within two hours and eat it the next day.

Reheat it gently to steaming and no further, and once only — the fish has been cooked twice already.