Fish Pie

Directions

• Firstly, peel and chop the potatoes into small 1/2″ chunks and put on to boil for around 30 minutes in salted water. This can be doing while your making the rest of the dish.
• Place the salmon, cod and haddock fillets into a large round skillet along with the onion, bay leaves, garlic cloves and peppercorns.
• Cover with the milk, until the fish is just covered – should be roughly 600ml, but maybe more or less depending on the size of the skillet.
• Heat the milk until bubbles form on the surface and then simmer and poach the fish for around 10 – 15 minutes or until the flesh of the fish will peel apart gently.
• Once cooked, remove from the heat, take the fish out and set aside to cool and then drain the liquor into a jug through a sieve to remove the ingredients – this will be the base of your sauce later. If the fish had skin on it, now is a good time to remove it, as it should peel off easily when the fish is warm.
• In an oven dish, break apart the fish to line the bottom evenly trying to get a good mix of the different fishes together. Add the prawns over the top, and distribute evenly – again trying to find a nice mix throughout.
• Slice each of the eggs into quarters longways and place in the dish along with the fish and prawns. You can now make the sauce.
• Sauce
• Add the butter to a saucepan and heat gently until it melts. Once melted, add the flour and stir with a spoon off the heat. You may find it best to add the flour a bit at a time – the flour and butter should form a roux (like a thick paste). If not, add more flour as required – the more you add, the thicker the sauce will be but it should resemble set honey at this stage.
• Add a small amount of the fish liquor and mix in, again with the spoon to loosen the roux and make sure you have no lumps – you should now have a nice very thick sauce with no lumps. Put back on a medium heat, and whisk the sauce gently while heating and adding the rest of the cooking liquor. Don’t add it all at once, add a quarter or so, cook through and check the consistency. Once it starts to thicken again, add more and cook through. You need to ensure all of the flour is cooked out or you will get a dry, pasty tasting sauce. You need to keep whisking constantly at this stage, or you may find your sauce goes lumpy
• Once you have enough sauce, at the required consistency, add the sea salt, a good grind of black pepper and the mustard. Whisk briefly and then pour the sauce over the fish in the oven dish ensuring you try and cover everything.
• Mash
• At this point, you can pre-heat the oven to around 190° C (if you’re cooking immediately. If not, this can be made in advance and cooked at a later stage).
• Drain the potatoes once cooked (they need to break apart when a knife is inserted into them) and leave on top of the pan in the colander to dry out slightly.
• Put back into the pan, add the butter and mash to a creamy consistency. If required, add the cream or milk to give a rich super creamy mash. Add this sparingly, a little at a time otherwise your mash will become runny. You can also add more butter which will help the mash go browner when in the oven.
• Once done, spoon or pipe the mash over the fish and sauce ensuring it is completely covered right to the edges.
• Finish
• Fluff up the mash with a fork to create peeks and then sprinkle the grated cheese over the top evenly.
• Place the oven dish on a baking tray (simply to catch any sauce which may bubble over the sides) and then place this in the upper part of a pre-heated oven for around 20 / 25 minutes or until the cheese is a dark brown and the dish is cooked through. The prawns should only take a few minutes in the oven, so it should easily be cooked but they need to be pink when taken out.
• Remove and serve with seasonal veg.