Double Comfort

A pie for all seasons
Fishy in a dishy, prawn béchamel and mash topping


I feel I've been a little less than positive of late but the days are now longer than the nights, the clocks are set to British Summer Time, the flowers in the park are blooming and I've even had a few trips out in the old jalopy with the roof down. So let's shake off the SAD and adopt the glad.

The only problem is the changing seasons also marks a change of page on the menu planner. The comfort food staples of stews, braises, suet pastry topped pies, steamed puddings and hearty soups with big chunks of crusty bread have served their purpose over the darker, chillier months and now have to take a back seat. In come the lighter meals, grills, pan fries, wok tosses, poaches and even the occasional green salad!

There is however a comfort food that is comfortable whatever the season and this particular comfort food, for me, delivers  double comfort. The first comfort is the making and baking the second of course is the eating. We are talking good old fashioned, Fish Pie!

Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin...

Fish pie is a traditional British dish. It is a pie in the same manner as Shepherd's pie is a pie. It is topped with mashed potato and baked in the oven. It is sometimes referred to as fisherman's pie. This seems perfectly reasonable, although I'd have to think about how the third of the mash topped pie trio fits this logic - cottage.

Fish pie is an assembly of many components each requiring it's own care, attention, time and effort. As with any comfort food dish and especially a multistage comfort dish it is important that the production environment is right. Let's set the scene. If the day is dark and threatening and icy rain is rattling against the windows like handfuls of gravel thrown up to the bedroom window of a beautiful maiden by a lusty youth in tights, switch on the kitchen lights, overheads, cooker hood and, even those silly ones hidden under the top cupboards if you've got them. Switch on the kitchen radio, the old one that you should have thrown away years ago. The one you have to twist the volume control up and down like mad to clear the gunk and get rid of the crackling. Tune it to a radio play. It doesn't matter what, it takes a certain type of person to follow a play on the radio. I get confused with TV and there I can actually see who's speaking. If on the other hand the sky outside is a beautiful azure blue, perhaps with the odd fluffy cumulus drifting lazily across, throw open the windows, select an 80's playlist on your music machine, twist the top off something white and chilled and prepare to be comforted.

As we have already said, the topping of a fish pie is mashed potato. This is not negotiable. If you are even thinking sliced potato or puff pastry, away, log off now - you have no place here. Not only has it got to be mash it has to be the richest, buttery-est, smoothest mash you can make. Boil some floury potatoes till a knife will go through them with no effort, drain them, return to the pan and throw a tea towel over them. Give them 10mins while you melt lots and lots of butter in a little milk. When your boiled potatoes have steam dried, mash. I have a potato ricer but it must be a cheap-o, more potato squirts out the sides than through the holes, so I go in with the good old fashioned masher. Go for it, put some effort in. After some good up and down action I like to finish off with a little round and round action. Once you are happy that you are really lump free knock off the excess from your masher and discard. Add your warm buttery milk to your mash, add it in stages if you worry it will become too sloppy but do take a stout wooden spoon and beat the potato, milk and butter together with gusto. Beat until your jiggly bits start to dance. I like to throw in a handful of Parmesan and beat that in before seasoning and setting the pan aside.

Fish pie, cheese and me. Above I mentioned adding a handful of Parmesan to the mash, for me this is the only place for cheese in a fish pie. I know that there are many that believe the sauce should be cheesy, there are some that insist on sprinkling cheese on top before it goes in the oven. If that's your thing, so be it. I don't think any less of you, well not a lot less. The truth is melted cheese is great on toast and fish pie sauce deserves much more flavour than a handful of melted cheddar.

Hard boiled eggs in fish pie for me are a must, but be sure to use good eggs, after all everyone likes a good egg. I recently had occasion where I ended up breaking the last of a box of Burford Brown's into to the same bowl as a supermarket's own free range and the difference was quite surprising. No prizes for guessing which was the best looking yoke. Boiled egg in fish pie bulks out the filling and adds texture but it's that texture that you have to be wary of. Twice cooked egg, and that is what you are effectively doing when you put your assembled pie in the oven, can go quite rubbery. For that reason I like to boil my eggs just enough to be able to get the shell off when they have cooled before giving them a good chopping ready to add to the mix. If you end up with a bit of runny yoke all the better, but don't lose it scoop it.

It's a universally accepted truth that you can't make an omelet without cracking eggs. We'll let me give you another, you can't make a fish pie without poaching fish, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Which fish? For me we are talking round fish, round fish with firm flaky flesh. Cod and it's relatives are the obvious choice. Something smoked, again haddock is the obvious choice, and don't be sniffy about the good old yellow peril. Chefs may knock it but it's been around a long time and the last lot I tried only mentioned turmeric and paprika, no nasty E's, no smoke either but what the heck. And last but not least something pink. Salmon, farmed, wild, whatever fits your budget. These are only suggestions, don't decide until you see what's on the fish counter. My local supermarket recently had a special purchase of smoked cod, bright yellow on the outside, white on the inside. It worked perfectly. The choice is yours and don't forget you can freeze what you don't use this time. The only choice you don't have is to go for those fish pie packs, they are offcuts, rag ends and scraps. I've tried them so you don't have to!

Time for a little poaching but leave the 12 bore in the gun safe and that stinky old jacket with the oversize pockets on the peg and get the milk from the fridge. Ideally I would have had the forethought to pick up a pint of full fat but whatever you've got, normally it's semi-skimmed in my fridge. Half fill a sauté or deep frying pan with milk add sliced onion, bay leaf and a few peppercorns. Bring to the boil then turn down to a gentle simmer, carefully lower the fish skin side down into it. Cook till the fish just starts to flake when prodded with a rigid digit. As each piece reaches perfection remove and set aside, keeping the poaching milk.

Although I am a great shellfish fan fish pie is not the place. The only exception is that lest shell-fishy shellfish, the prawn. Even so if they are not shell on prawns I wouldn't bother. It is the heads and shells that I want, so pull off the head, peel off the shell and if they are ready cooked pop them straight in to the reserved poaching milk. If they are uncooked stick the heads and shells in a tray, dribble a glug of olive oil over them and give them a little roast in a hot oven till lovely and pink before adding them to the milk. Simmer gently to extract all that prawn flavour before straining through a sieve ready to make the sauce. If your prawns were cooked chop them finely, they do the egg trick and go rubbery, if they are raw just devein and give them a wash but leave them whole.

For the sauce we just need a simple Béchamel made with that gorgeous fish and prawn flavoured milk. Make it in a larger pan than you would normally use as we are going to add the fish and prawns to it before tipping it into a dish. Once you have a smooth, silky and fairly runny coating sauce add a handful of chopped parsley. There are very few thing that aren't improved with a sprinkle of parsley. Stir to distribute the little green specks evenly before gently flaking the fish, big flakes are best, and adding to the pan. Add the chopped or raw prawns along with the chopped egg. Carefully, using a spatula fold everything into the sauce. Have a taste and season as necessary.

Now for the assembly and bake. Pour the fish and sauce mix into an ovenproof dish. Top with the mash. Start with little dollops round the edge working towards the middle. Leave the top craggy and mountain like for those crispy little spikes when cooked or smooth over and do the fish scale pattern trick with the tip of a pallet knife for a more classy look. Put the dish on an oven tray. We want the sauce to bubble up and run down the sides and brown on the dish. Slide the oven tray and the pie onto the middle shelf of a moderately hot oven and cook until the bubbling is happening and the top is browning. It is perfectly acceptable to sit on the floor watching for this to happen through the glass door. It is comfort food after all.

When bubbled and browned remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Pile big spoonfuls on to a plate and eat with a fork, preferably while wandering around the kitchen, plate in hand and making Mmmmm noises. Comfort fish pie should not be eaten at the table, eaten with a knife or served with veg.

Time to spend a little time cleaning the glass in my oven door. Wish it had a brighter internal light!