If you’d have walked into our kitchen at around 7.30pm last night you’d have known, instantly, that LincsGeek and I were enjoying our dinner. The gentle mmmmms and nommmmmms left no room for conversation.
I’d spent the previous hour or so making a fish pie. I’ve not made one for months, maybe more than a year, which was a great mistake because it was absolutely delicious – if I do say so myself! To be fair I rarely make time to spend an hour cooking dinner; I like to cook things properly from scratch but if I spent an hour preparing and cooking a meal then I end up getting nothing else done at all, so I stick to half an hour when possible. But this was well worth it.
I’ve not shared a recipe for a while so here you go… my fish pie recipe, courtesy of instructions my mum gave me years and years ago along with the influence of a couple of recipe books I have at home. This will serve four hungry people. And I’ve no idea on calories but it can’t be that bad!
Ingredients
Pie Filling
- Fish – of course! I used a punnet of fish pie mix from Morrisons; about 340g of cod, salmon and smoked haddock.
- Decent handful of cooked and peeled king prawns.
- Four eggs.
- Decent handful of frozen peas.
- Decent handful of frozen sweet corn.
- Chives – I used dried as my fresh chives died!
Sauce
- 25g flour.
- 25g butter.
- Bunch of spring onions, chopped but not too finely.
- A rounded teaspoon of Dijon mustard.
- 400ml milk.
Mash
- Potatoes for mashing – around 1kg.
- Butter and milk.
- Plenty of grated mature Cheddar cheese.
- Ground black pepper.
Method
Clean and chop your potatoes, cover with water and boil for 20 minutes. I like leaving the skins on when I make mash – makes for a rustic mash with plenty of goodness (this isn’t Masterchef!). Once cooked, mash well with a good amount of butter and a dash of milk. Season with ground black pepper.
Meanwhile, make the sauce. Put your flour, butter and spring onions into a pan and allow the butter to melt over a low heat. You should stir regularly. Allow this to cook for a couple of minutes before slowly adding the milk bit by bit. Use a whisk to mix in the milk well at each stage – you don’t want a lumpy sauce! Once the milk is all mixed in bring the sauce to the boil (keep stirring!) and allow to cook for two or three minutes until it has thickened. Take it off the heat so it doesn’t get too thick.
Add the Dijon mustard to the sauce and stir, followed by the chives, fish (no need to poach the fish first, it cooks in the oven), prawns, peas and sweetcorn. Transfer all this to a deep oven-proof dish.
Halve the eggs and push into the pie filling. I don’t add these until now as they can break up when stirring and pouring, and this way you can add them so you know each serving gets an egg.
Spread the mash evenly over the top of the pie filling (but not too neatly – don’t spend ages on it!) and cover with the grated cheddar.
Cook in a medium oven (180 degrees ish) for 25 minutes or until the top is golden.
Serve immediately away and enjoy!
