Fish Pie conjures memories of sitting around a family friend’s kitchen table as she lovingly prepared all the components. So much so, that I used to actively seek out this meal from the usual Sunday Roast dinners at school and spend time with her and her husband enjoying a few hours of relative calm and relaxation as she pottered around the kitchen in meditative concentration, I’m sure this meal had been made a hundred times by her and the net end result was always delicious. Creamy, Eggy, Fishy, Potato-ey (Stretching it a bit now) and Yummy.
The Historic Fish Pie I talk of has a Béchamel Sauce base with White Wine reductions and beautiful poached nuggets of Fish, lightly sautéed vegetables all complementing the differing textures and flavours of Cod, Smoked Haddock, Prawn, Mussels and whatever this particularly good cook would search out at a fishmongers, on a given day.
My fish pie here is a cheat’s fish pie, it is quick, it utilised things we had in the freezer and was exactly that TBH needed that day. I got home later than expected and whilst she was out at Prego Yoga I thought I would make use of the 2 Salmon fillets that had been accidentally defrosted from the freezer. As they fallen out earlier that day and I had forgotten to put them back in, in time; due to the melee of Frozen Peas, Half Loaves of Bread and Ice Cubes showering the floor of our kitchen.
We’ve tried wherever possible to have fish once or twice a week as the fish oils are crucial in the babies’ development, keeps meals lighter as the Pregnancy Heartburn is a real side effect currently and it keeps us thinking creatively when we are cooking each week.
The only remotely technical part of this whole process is getting your eggs soft boiled, so when you serve it you get a runny yolk to mix into the sauce which is the best part of any dish which utilises egg yolks (Eggs Benedict, in my humble opinion, is the best example of this). This is all achieved using Crème Fraiche. Once baked in the oven and combined with the all other ingredients you get something very similar to a Classic Buerre Blanc but with 1000% less buggering around with sauce reducing
Fish Pie for 6 (or 4 really hungry people)
6 eggs
4 fillets salmon
4 fillets of smoked mackerel or Smoked Haddock If you prefer (but only 2 fillets needed for Haddock)
4/5 frozen king prawns per person
300g peas
2 leeks
2 large bags of baby spinach
2 pots crème fraiche (medium tubs I think these are 450g)
1.5 kg of mashable potatoes
Chives bunch
Parsley bunch
2 lemons
Salt & Pepper
Little bit of butter
1. Wilt the spinach in a saucepan with a little olive oil. Reserve in a bowl, once cool it will release more liquid which can be poured off.
2. Boil your pealed spuds with 2 cloves of garlic in very salty water.
3. Once the water comes to a boil, add you eggs to the water. Cook at a boil for 5mins for the eggs to be perfect “soft boil”, remove them and put into cold water. Peel the eggs once fully cold...
4. Once the potatoes are soft, drain and allow to steam dry for 10 mins before mashing. Mash with olive oil, butter and a little crème fraiche.
4. Cut up the fish into inch cubes, (larger pieces are ok) make sure this is all even sizes for cooking.
5.Softened the leeks in butter and olive oil.
6. Add the peas to the softened leeks, zest 1 lemon into the leeks and peas
7. Add salt & pepper, 2 lemons, juiced and the rest of the tubs of crème fraiche.
8. Add the fish and frozen prawns to the peas, leek and crème fraiche mix.
9. Heat the mix for 2 mins with the lid on, which will cook the fish 1/2 way and melt the crème fraiche
10. Add finely chopped parsley & chives, check your sauce seasoning before it goes into the pie dish.
11. Layer the Pie Dish - spinach, peeled eggs, fish mix with crème fraiche, top it with mash potato.
12. It will need 10mins in a 200 degree oven as the fish is almost cooked anyway, then under a hot grill to brown the top.
13. Stuff your faces