Trouble with a lot of fish is it’s easy to over or under cook.
However, the old faithful fish pie is more difficult than most to ruin and you can do a lot of the tricky bits ahead of time.
What you need is some salmon, some chunky white fish (cod good) and some prawns. Probably for a generous pie for 4 you’ll want the equivalent of 3 salmon steaks, same mount of cod (a biggish fillet) – maybe 300 gms of each (I’m not good with actual weights) and a handful of prawns.
Cook the fish separately in two frying pans (if you have 2 – makes it easier to cook both accurately) in a bit of butter until it is just done (salmon will flake off the bone, cod just starting to flake) doesn’t matter if you poke it about in the pan whilst cooking to investigate as you are going to flake it anyway. Take off the heat and pull the fish away from bones/skin and put to one side – try to keep it in big bite size lumps. Make sure you meticulously check over the fish for bones. Do not overcook as it is going to get well and truly cooked in the pie anyway.
Pour any butter left in the frying pans through a sieve into a saucepan. Make a white sauce (more butter if needs be + flour to make a paste then gradually add milk stirring all the while. Salt. Make enough sauce to keep the whole dish fairly squishy – as much sauce as fish.
When the sauce is ready add in the fish and prawns (I also like to chuck in some capers) don’t stir too much as you want the fish to stay in lumps. Then pour into your pie dish.
You can do all the above ahead of time if you want.
Shortly before guests arrive make some nice creamy mash. Splash out on some Rooster or Desiree potatoes if available. Make a similar amount of mash as fish/sauce. After mashing the spuds add some butter and milk an beat with a big fork to get it properly creamy. I add some white pepper.
Put mash on fish. Grate over some cheddar cheese and put in oven at about gas 5-6 for half an hour. If necessary whack under grill for a minute to get cheese bubbling at the end.
I would serve with maybe Chantenay carrots (little ones) or just sliced carrots, that I steam and then put back into the saucepan when cooked with butter, lemon juice and black pepper and toss about until coated. Plus maybe some broccoli or spring greens.
Or if you don’t fancy those veg a different sort of combination might be some roast tomatoes (halve and put on a tray with some oil drizzled over and bung in oven for an hour) with some wilted spinach.
Yum.
