Fish pie for two
A creamy filling under mash sieved properly silky
Halves easily into one dish with a smaller pan of poaching milk. Freeze the second dish unbaked, well wrapped, for up to three months.
Fish pie works because the poaching liquid never goes to waste. Skinless white fish and a piece of salmon cook gently in milk until they flake easily, and that same milk becomes the sauce, so every scrap of flavour ends up back in the dish rather than down the sink. Prawns are good stirred through at the end if you have them, though the pie is good without them too. The mash on top matters more than usual here. Push it through a sieve once mashed and it turns properly silky, with no fibrous thread left to catch on the way down. Bake two small dishes rather than one large one, so a second sits ready in the freezer for an evening when cooking feels like too much.
Ingredients
Contains: Gluten, Milk, Fish, Crustaceans
- 200 gwhite fish such as cod or haddock, skinless, boneless, cut into large chunks
- 150 gsalmon fillet, skinless, boneless, cut into large chunks
- 450 mlwhole milk, 400 ml for poaching the fish, 50 ml for the mash
- 550 gpotato, peeled and cut into even chunks
- 60 gunsalted butter, 30 g for the sauce, 30 g for the mash
- 30 gplain flour
- 70 gCheddar, grated, 40 g for the sauce, 30 g for the top
- 100 gcooked prawns, peeled, thawed if frozen — optional
- salt
Method
Put the fish and salmon in a wide, shallow pan in a single layer and pour over 400 ml of the milk. Bring to a bare simmer over a low heat and poach for 5 minutes, until the fish flakes easily when pressed with a fork. Lift it onto a plate with a slotted spoon and set the poaching milk aside.
Meanwhile, put the potato chunks in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 15 to 18 minutes, until a knife slides in with no resistance. Drain well and return to the pan over a low heat for a minute to dry out.
Melt 30 g of the butter in a clean pan over a medium heat, stir in the flour and cook for a minute, stirring constantly. Take the pan off the heat and whisk in the reserved poaching milk a little at a time until smooth, then return to a low heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often, until it coats the back of a spoon. Heat the oven to 200°C fan (220°C) while it simmers.
If the sauce looks too thick once the Cheddar goes in, loosen it with a spoonful of the reserved poaching milk. It should coat a spoon, not stand on it.
Stir 40 g of the Cheddar into the sauce until melted, then flake the fish into large pieces and fold it in with the prawns if you are using them. Season with salt and divide between two small pie dishes.
Mash the potato, then push it through a sieve or a potato ricer into a clean bowl for a properly silky texture. Beat in the remaining 30 g of butter and the 50 ml of milk until smooth, and season with salt.
Spread the mash over the fish in each dish right to the edges, ripple the surface with a fork and scatter with the remaining 30 g of Cheddar.
The second dish freezes well unbaked. Wrap it once cool and cook from frozen at 200°C fan (220°C) for 45 to 50 minutes, until it is piping hot all the way to the middle.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the top is golden in patches and the filling is bubbling at the edges. Leave to stand for a couple of minutes before eating. The filling is very hot.
Watch-points
- Buy fish that is already skinned and boned, or run a finger over each piece to check before it goes into the milk.
- Push the mash through a sieve or a ricer once mashed, rather than leaving it hand-mashed, so it is properly silky with no fibrous thread.
- Peas stay out of this pie entirely. Their skins pass through undigested, and there is no quartered egg on top either.
- If you are freezing the second dish, use prawns that have not already been frozen and thawed, or leave them out of that one. Reheated fish and shellfish need to be piping hot right through.
Stoma note: The mashed potato here is naturally thickening, which makes this a good choice on a day when output is loose.
Make it more nourishing
- Stir an extra 30 g of grated Cheddar into the sauce before it goes into the dishes.
- Beat 2 tablespoons of double cream into the mash in place of some of the milk.
- Use 150 g of prawns instead of 100 for more protein without adding to the mash.
- Add 1 tablespoon of skimmed milk powder to the poaching milk before you start. You will not taste it.
Swaps
- Instead of salmon, use extra white fish
- an all-white-fish pie works fine, though it loses some of the richness and colour salmon brings
- Instead of Cheddar, use Gruyère
- melts smoothly and gives a nuttier top