Tuesday 12 October 2010

Captain Kate's Fabulous Fish Pie



As if I could be the captain of a trawler, good grief!


Ingredients
Serves 4
  • 450g/15 1/2oz Mixed, boneless fish cut into large cubes  I used a mixture of prawns, cod and haddock
  • 600ml Milk
  • I Large leek sliced
  • 100g/4oz Butter
  • 50g/2oz Gluten Free Plain Flour (Dietary Specials, Glutafin, Juvela, Doves Farm)
  • 1 Tbsp Fresh or dried parsley
  • 50ml White wine
  • 3-4 Medium sized potatoes for mashing
  • 1 Tbsp Olive oil
  • Medium sized oven proof pie dish
Method
  • Start of by frying your sliced leek over a low heat with the tbsp of olive oil and 50g of butter. Cook until they're soft, season to taste and leave them to one side for later. If you aren't big on leeks, one small white onion diced would be a perfectly acceptable substitute.
  • Pour your milk into a large pan and simmer over a low heat, plop in the fish and the parsley and poach over the low heat for around 4-5 minutes.
  • When its cooked, strain the fish out of the milk, keeping the milk to one side for later. Spoon the fish into your pie dish and mix the leeks through the fish.
  • The sauce that goes over the fish is basically a roux. Melt the rest of the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, stir in the flour quickly and cook for one minute. Your looking for a smooth, paste like consistency, it should look almost like a smooth cookie dough mixture, and when its cooked it will almost hold its own shape.
  • Stir in the milk you used to poach the fish a cup full at a time, using a whisk to stir the roux and milk mix so it stays as smooth and lump free as Cindy Crawford's legs. Its important not to add all the milk at once as you may not need all of it depending on the thickness of the sauce, judge for yourself whether you think its thick enough, your aiming for a sauce that's ever so slightly thicker than double cream but not so thick that you could spread it on toast.
  • Once your sauce is ready and waiting to roll, pour it over the fish, covering it evenly. Its not the most appetising looking sauce I admit, in fact it looks like wall paper paste but bear with me!
  • Boil your King Ted's until soft and almost falling apart when you poke them with a knife. Drain your spuds and give them a good mash, I like using a good wedge of butter in mine for nice creamy (but not sloppy!) mash. 
  • Spread your mash over the top of your masterpiece of a pie, you can use a fork like I did and make little patterns over the top of the pie, if you don't have endless hours to waste doing daft things like that, just smooth the mash over the pie. If you fancied you could top your pie with a good old handful of cheese for a cheesy-mash topping.
  • Bake in the oven for a good 30minutes, at Gas 6/200c. It should be golden on top when its cooked.
  • Dish up with some veg, shovel into your pie-hole, being careful not to burn your mouth on the near nuclear pie.
P.s. Its another sad day because I don't have a photo of the pie, I went out for dinner last night and wasn't here to take a snap when the pie emerged from the oven. However you can enjoy this picture of Flounder and Sebastian from The Little Mermaid (my all time favourite film), who, if they existed in the real world would have probably ended up in a pie by now.

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