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Twice Laid
2 lbs. cold cooked fish 6 hard-cooked eggs 12 filleted anchovies 1½ pints (3 cups) thick white sauce I/2 pint (I cup) grated cheese Salt and pepper to taste 1 pint (2 cups) mashed potatoes Few pieces puff paste 2 chopped onions 2 tablespoonfuls chopped parsley I/2 pint (I cup) chopped cooked ham Butter a fireproof dish, sprinkle in the chopped onion, parsley and ham. Flake the fish and slice the eggs. Put a layer of the sauce in the dish, sprinkle in some of the cheese, and on this arrange a layer of the fish and eggs, then add another of the sauce, and so on until the dish is almost full; sprinkle over the top a little salt and pepper.
Cover with mashed potatoes, brush over the top with a little beaten egg, garnish with the puff pastry, place in a baking tin and cook in a hot oven for thirty minutes.
Any remains of cold fish, chicken or meat can be utilized in the same way.
A leftovers casserole in the British style, closer to a fish pie than anything else. The ingredient list and the method do not quite agree, so read both before you start.
- The anchovies are never mentioned againTwelve fillets are listed but the method skips them. Chop or lay them whole between the fish and egg layers, and taste before adding any salt — anchovies, ham and cheese together will carry the seasoning on their own.
- "1/2 pints (3 cups)" of sauceA typo for 1 1/2 pints; the book's own equation of 1/2 pint with 1 cup makes that 3 cups. "Thick" here means a heavy béchamel, roughly 3 tablespoons each butter and flour per cup of milk — it must hold the layers up rather than flood them.
- Hot oven425–450F. Thirty minutes at that heat browns the potato crust and the puff paste; the fish, eggs, ham and potato are already cooked, so the bake is largely about colour and heating through.
- The raw onionTwo chopped onions scattered raw on the dish base may still taste sharp after thirty minutes buried under sauce and potato. Soften them in butter first unless you want the bite.
- Puff paste garnishSmall shapes of bought puff pastry, baked separately or set on the potato for the last fifteen minutes. Laid on at the start they sit in steam and stay pale.
- Which fishThe recipe says only cold cooked fish; firm white fish such as cod, haddock or hake suits it, and smoked haddock works well with the ham and cheese. Pick over carefully for bones and skin before flaking.
- Dish size and yieldThe quantities fill a 3-quart baking dish and serve six to eight generously. Let it stand ten minutes before serving or the layers slide.
The name comes from rope, not cookery: "twice-laid" was cordage respun from the sound strands of old worn rope, and by extension a naval term for a meal made a second time out of yesterday's remains — most often salt fish and potatoes. The closing line here, offering cold chicken or meat as substitutes, shows the dish is really a formula rather than a fixed recipe. The list of extras — ham, anchovy, cheese, puff paste — extends that formula further still.