The kitchen smells of smoked fish and butter and something gently warm from the curry powder, and I know before I've sat down that the morning is going to be better than I expected. That's what kedgeree does. It arrives on the plate looking modest, golden rice, pale flakes of haddock, halved eggs with their soft yolks catching the light, and then it delivers more than it promised.

This is a borrowed dish. It came back from India with the Victorians, and somewhere between Calcutta and the English breakfast table it became something else entirely: quieter, gentler, dressed in butter and parsley instead of chilli and spice. I don't know whether it's breakfast or supper. I've served it as both. It works when the morning is slow enough to deserve real cooking, and it works on a weeknight when you want something that feels considered without being difficult. Right food, right evening.

The haddock is the thing. Good, naturally smoked, undyed haddock poached in milk until it barely holds together. The poaching milk then cooks the rice, so nothing is wasted, and the whole dish carries that gentle, savoury smokiness through every mouthful. A recipe is a conversation, not a contract: use the quantities here as a starting point and adjust to your own kitchen. More lemon if you like. More parsley. An extra egg, because there are few better feelings than cutting into a soft-boiled egg and watching the yolk run into the warm rice beneath it.

I wrote it down in the notebook years ago. "Kedgeree. Saturday. Rain on the window. Seconds." That tells you everything.