Fish Pie - Fish Week #2

Fish pie is a traditional British dish. Read more about it here. If I were to make this again with more seafood, I'll name it as Fisherman's pie.

During that time, my brother in law dines with us on week days.I thought this pie was huge and when my BIL said he won’t be coming for dinner, I was worried it won’t be finished, but I was wrong. My hubby and I ate it all with pleasure. LOL.

So good!

look at the ooozing sauce.....

I was shopping at Jusco, saw some dill and suddenly thought of making Cullen Skink. It was a recipe that I bookmarked long ago. I knew I had potatoes at home and milk too, so I grabbed a bag of frozen sutchi, or which are Pangasisus dory (ikan patin) with a glamourous name. I was glad these sutchi didn’t smell muddy as some might.

When I came home and checked the recipe for Cullen Skink, it called for smoked cod. Oh well...bought the wrong fish and can't find it, can't get it and so.... fish pie came into being instead.

I made and assembled this pie in advance (1pm) as I had to do whatever I can while Reuben is sleeping. It wasn’t hard but I had to adapt the recipe in a lot of ways. I ran out of onions but had spring onions and shallots and I definitely prefer these over onions. Spring onions are wonderful in removing unpleasant fishy smells, better than ginger. When I was making the sauce I also found that the recipe called for too much flour with too little milk. So, I had to add a lot more milk to thin down the sauce to a preferable consistency and indeed it came to an amount just nice to cover the fish.

Yummy cheesy mash!

When my hubby ate this, he said, this seems fattening.. well, err… it’s just 55gm butter in all. If I were to cook Chinese dishes, I’ll be using oil too, and there’s no cream in this. The creaminess came from the flour and milk. Maybe the mash topping is creating a feeling of sinfulness, but in actual fact, this dish is not that evil.

Psttt.. I made this in Jan 2012 when Reuben was still a sleepy baby :)
Now he's almost 3 and running around

Tender Fish :)

Fish Pie
Recipe majorly adapted from : BBC Good Food 
Serves : 2-4

Filling
500gm fish fillets
500ml fresh milk
2 spring onions, white part only
2 shallots, thickly sliced
2 bay leaves
Some ground black pepper

25gm butter
20gm flour
Salt to taste
Some fresh parsley, chopped

Mashed Potatoes (see below)
2 slices of cheddar cheese
3 hard boiled eggs

1. Place fish fillets in pan and top with milk. Add in spring onions, shallots, bay leaves and black pepper. Heat until the side bubbles and lower to the lowest heat, let it simmer for 8 minutes.
2. Take fish out onto a 9 inch baking dish and break it apart into large flakes. Strain milk, keep aside and discard the rest. (I pick out the shallots and put them onto the fish). Cut hard boiled eggs into long quarters and arrange over fish.
3. In a pan, on medium low heat, heat butter until the bubbles almost disappears. Put in flour and cook for a while. Keep the heat low or turn off heat(to be safe) and put in milk (from poaching fish) gradually, stirring to incorporate the milk to the flour. Mix until the sauce is smooth. Cook until sauce thickens (it will thicken a lot further when cooled down). Season with salt and pepper. Toss in the chopped parsley. Spoon sauce over fish in dish.
4. Top the pie with mash, making sure the surface is well covered with mash. Chop cheddar cheese and sprinkle it over the mash. Let pie sit for 1 hour or a few(sitting at room temperature will cause the chopped cheddar slices to melt and spread)
5. Bake at 180(fan)/200C for 30 minutes or until cheese is golden. (I didn’t bother to preheat the oven)

*pie can be assembled one day ahead and baked before serving

before baking

Mashed Potatoes topping

500gm Russet potatoes (peeled weight)
30gm butter
½-2/3 cup of milk
Salt to taste

1. Peel and cut potatoes into chunks.
2. Boil in water until they soften.
3. Drain potatoes and mash with butter.
4. Put in milk gradually and adjust to a creamy consistency, almost like whipped cream. (take note that mash will get firmer when cooled down).
5. Season with salt and use it to top the pie.