I played around with 3 or 4 different recipes for this pie, taking what I liked best from each. The end result is creamy, rich and deeply fulfilling.
Chop approximately 800g skinned and filleted white fish into bite sized pieces and scatter into a dish.
Sauté 3 finely chopped shallots in butter until soft. Add about 285ml double cream, a bay leaf and a splash of vermouth or white wine then bring to the boil and simmer gently for about five minutes. Turn off the heat and remove the bay leaf. Stir in the juice of half a lemon, a handful of chopped parsley and some grated hard cheese to taste. Season then pour over the fish.
Top with buttery mashed potato and bake at 200c for 30-40 minutes until golden.
Hi Richard,
I totally agree. I ate mine curled up on the sofa with a glass of white wine.
I’m trying to imagine fish pie with a pastry top but I can’t disassociate it from the mashed potato, it just isn’t fish pie without it!
I love fish pie – but was surprised to see a Gordon Ramsey recipe recently that had a pastry top rather than mashed potato – to me fish pie is ultimate comfort food – to be eaten just with a fork, preferably in front of a good film…
I’ve experimented with lots of different fish pies (adding prawns or mussels for example) but the old favourite has to be white fish (coley is fine) and smoked haddock…