Fantastic Fish Pie

Jamie Oliver calls this "Fantastic Fish Pie" and you know what? He's not wrong! This is by far the best fish pie I've ever made and shall now never stray from this recipe again. There's no point is there when you've found one that works?

Mr M is very dubious about fish but he enjoyed this even if he did pick his way around the minuscule amount of spinach I put into it! Men!

This fish pie was warming and satisfying and I can see us eating this a lot over the winter. I strayed from the original recipe a bit in that I didn't solely use haddock or cod as you can tell from the above picture. I infact bought one of those fish pie mixes you can now get in the supermarket so my pie included salmon. I think you could use any fish you liked in this, perhaps throw a few prawns in it as well.

Fantastic Fish Pie

Ingredients

6 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 1-inch squares
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 eggs
2 handfuls fresh spinach, trimmed and washed
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
Extra-virgin olive oil
285ml double cream
2 large handfuls of grated mature Cheddar or Parmesan (I used a mix of both)
juice of 1 lemon
1 heaped teaspoon English mustard
1 handful flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
455g fresh fish - haddock, cod etc skin removed, deboned and sliced
Nutmeg (whole)

Method

Put the potatoes into salted boiling water and bring back to a boil for 2 minutes. Carefully add the eggs to the pan and cook for a further 8 minutes until hard boiled, by which time the potatoes should also be cooked.

Steam the spinach in a colander above the potato pan. for about a minute. When the spinach is done, remove from the colander and squeeze excess moisture away. Drain the potatoes in the colander. Remove the eggs, cool under cold water, then peel and quarter them. Place to one side.

In a separate pan slowly fry the onion and carrot in a little olive oil for about 5 minutes, then add the double cream and bring just to a boil. Remove from the heat and add the cheese, lemon juice, mustard, and parsley.

Put the spinach, fish and eggs into a large earthenware dish and mix together, pouring over the creamy vegetable sauce. The cooked potatoes should be drained and mashed, add a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg. Spread the potato on top of the fish. mixture. Pop the dish into the oven for about 25 to 30 minutes until the potatoes are golden.

One of my favourite things about this was the egg in it. I'd never put egg into fish pie before because I always thought it a bit odd but I'd never do it without now! Jamie suggested eating it with tomato ketchup - another thing I'd never thought of doing but oh my days, it was delicious!

love & kisses
Mrs M x