This was one of my favourite dishes as a child, and I once had it for a birthday treat when three friends came over for tea. My mum was a good cook and I used to hang around the kitchen looking for a bowl to scrape, this was before anyone had heard of salmonella. I have no recipes of hers, but I am hoping it will come close to being comparable.

The thought of a Kipper Tart, or Kipper Quiche if you prefer does not appeal to my family. I’ve made it once before, last year, when one of my New Year’s resolutions was Pies, Quiches, or Tarts, and I made a pastry dish every week for twelve weeks. I subjected Grampy to it, and he liked it, I don’t think he was just being polite. I loved it, a taste from 50 years before.

This is a high tea savoury quiche; you only need a thin slice.

I am using a 23-24cm fluted quiche dish (the white one). A short crust base with blind baking for first 20 minutes, and then 10 minutes more in the aga. The pastry is 200g of plain flour and 100g unsalted butter, but I added a little salt to the flour as it was processed in the Kitchen Aid. Perhaps a tad too much cold water, it was a little sticky when I wrapped it in cling film and put it in the fridge for 45 minutes.

I mixed two drained 160g cans of kipper fillets, 120g of grated mature cheddar, 30g of parsley with stalks removed, and 20ml of lemon juice (1/2 a lemon). I added the parsley and lemon juice and a little cream into a Nutribullet just enough liquid to process the parsley. This replaced the pastry in the fridge.

The pastry when rolled out was a little too much, but I’ve made two small mincemeat tarts with the leftovers. Shortcrust pastry is a 50/50 mix, I could have got away with 180g flour/90g butter, but 100g is easier to cut as there are marks on the butter pack every 50g. Next time I need to leave more pastry overlapping the edge of the quiche dish to allow for shrinkage of the pastry as it cooks.

Once the pastry was cooked and cooling, I beat two large eggs and added 275ml (1/2 pint) mix of single cream and milk, 50/50. This was added to the kipper mix and folded in so that it could be poured into the pastry case. If the pastry had not shrunk back, it would have been about the right amount of mix, but I added the remaining mix to fill 2/3 of a ramekin.

The Kipper Tart took 40-45 minutes to cook, after 35 minutes I removed the ramekin and moved the tart up from the aga floor to a grill nearer the top of the aga, until it looked as if the tart was firm on the top. This might have been a further 7-8 minutes. Our aga does not have a reliable temperature, so cooking is very much based on look and see.

I’m now allowing the Kipper Tart to cool a little while I write this, but I’m tasting the mix that was added to the ramekin. I think it is just right, it is very subtle, not a strong flavour of kippers, quite mild. You can make out the parsley, lemon juice and cheddar, I’m not sure I would adjust the mix at all.

When the tart was very slightly warm, I tried it, a thumbs up, genuinely nice indeed. You wouldn’t want any more than the slice shown in the photograph, and in case you are wondering it is a tea plate and not a dinner plate. I seem to remember it works just as well at room temperature. If the rain holds off I’ll be subjecting my golf partner Peter to a slice later.

Recipe

• 2x 160g Kipper Fillets, drained.
• 120g of mature cheddar
• 30g packet of fresh parsley, stalks removed
• 20ml lemon juice (1/2 lemon)
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 275ml (1/2 pint) of single cream, milk (50/50)

Shortcrust pastry (23/24cm fluted quiche dish)

• 200g plain flour
• 100g unsalted butter
• Pinch of salt
• Cold water to bind together