I’m the Monday to Friday cook in our household (and a lazy one at that).
I give you the speediest and yummiest recipe for fish pie that I’ve come across: There’s no béchamel sauce, and unlike other fish pie recipes, you don’t end up with dry, overcooked fish. You can find this in The Return of the Naked Chef, by Jamie Oliver, published 2000, Michael Joseph (Penguin).
FANTASTIC FISH PIE
5 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 2.5cm/1inch squares
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 free-range eggs
2 large handfuls of freshly washed spinach
1onion, finely chopped
1carrot, halved and finely chopped
olive oil
285ml/half a pint of double cream
2 good handfuls of grated mature Cheddar or Parmesan cheese
juice of 1 lemon
1 heaped tsp English mustard
1 large handful of flat-leaf parsley
455g/1lb haddock or cod fillet, skinned, pin-boned and sliced into strips
Serves 6
METHOD
- Preheat the oven to 210 C fan oven or 430 F.
- Put the potatoes into salted boiling water and bring back to the 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. At the same time steam the spinach in a colander above the pan with a lid on. This should only take a minute. When the spinach is done, remove from the colander and gently squeeze all the excess moisture away.
- Drain the potatoes in the colander.
- Remove the eggs, cool under cold water, peel and chop them into quarters and set aside.
- In a large frying pan, slowly fry the onion and carrot in a little olive oil for about five minutes, then add the double cream and bring just to the boil.
- Remove from the heat and add the cheese, lemon juice and parsley.
- Put the spinach, fish and eggs into a large ovenproof dish and mix together, pouring over the creamy sauce.
- Mash the drained potatoes – adding butter or olive oil, salt and pepper. Dollop on top of the fish and cook for 25-30 minutes until the potatoes are golden.