# Fish pie, anyone.



## Mad Cook (Apr 16, 2014)

I'm going to my cousins on Friday and I'm taking the main course. I have salmon, prawns, wine, cream, milk, dill and parsley, peas, and a small bunch of English asparagus and can buy other ingredients. The topping will be creamy mashed potatoes. The only proviso is No Cheese - she doesn't like it.

Any super-doper, holiday fish pie recipes out there? Any suggestions!


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## GotGarlic (Apr 16, 2014)

Hopefully one of your countrymen or -women will respond. I've never had fish pie and don't remember anyone I know having it, either. Apparently it's one of those things that didn't make it across the pond


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## Whiskadoodle (Apr 16, 2014)

Sounds like a plan.  I'd opt for a spoonful of dijon and some crushed garlic in the sauce before mixing it all together.


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## Roll_Bones (Apr 16, 2014)

I don't trust anyone that doesn't like cheese........LOL


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## CraigC (Apr 16, 2014)

Love me some crawfish pie or lobster pot pie!


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## Aunt Bea (Apr 17, 2014)

We have an Irish restaurant in town that make a fish pie similar to the one that you describe.  They make it as a sort of fish stew, ladle it into a bowl and top it with a round of puff pastry.

This salmon/potato pie is very good and can be put together using things normally found in a well stocked pantry.

New England Salmon Pie Recipe | Taste of Home


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## Mad Cook (Apr 17, 2014)

GotGarlic said:


> Hopefully one of your countrymen or -women will respond. I've never had fish pie and don't remember anyone I know having it, either. Apparently it's one of those things that didn't make it across the pond


 Lots of recipes on Google - some bad, some good. Fish "pie" varies from boring nursery food to good enough for a dinner party. I hope mine will be the latter. 

I'm including giant prawns (shrimp, to you), cod and salmon. 

The fish is poached lightly in the milk for the sauce with the chopped dill, lemon zest and salt and pepper before the sauce is made  The sauce will have leeks, butter, Channel Islands milk (from Jersey and Guernsey cows), dill, a little mustard, salt and pepper, lemon zest and juice. 

For the sauce melt butter then sweat the chopped leaks in it until soft but not coloured then add flour and cook off adding the warm milk as in béchamel sauce and the other sauce ingredients to taste. Then the fish, the uncooked frozen peas and the sauce will be placed in a deepish dish. 

The potatoes are boiled then drained (I like to put them back in the pan and shake them over the heat to dry them) and mashed with butter and a little warm milk, ground black pepper, salt if needed and spread on the fish mixture (you can pipe it if you want to be "posh"). Pop in the oven at gas mark 6 (if you're in UK) or 200C/400F for about 20 minutes or until bubbling and lightly browned on top.

Normally I'd put cheese (usually cheddar) in the sauce but my cousin doesn't like it and I like my cousin so it's left out here. 

It freezes well before the oven baking and I often do it in individual dishes to freeze so I have something to fish out of the freezer when I haven't time to fiddle with cooking. I sometimes add frozen chopped spinach, well drained and squeezed) to the sauce but haven't this time.

This version is fairly rich with the Channel Islands milk and butter but you wouldn't eat it everyday and if you have it every Friday you'd probably make a less rich version but this is Good Friday and I haven't seen Jeannine and Fred since before Christmas as neither of them are able to drive now. I go to see them and we take it in turns to cook lunch.


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## Somebunny (Apr 18, 2014)

Sounds lovely to me MC, I love prawns and salmon, and what's not to like about a creamy sauce that includes wine.  I have never had or heard of fish pie, (except crawfish pie, and I don't know what that is) but perhaps the name is a bit of a misnomer, sort of like shepherd's pie or cottage pie, which really aren't "pie" in the traditional sense of say a fruit pie. 
I think your cousin will be happy and to be honest, I wouldn't miss the cheese, even though I love it.  Have a wonderful holiday lunch!


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## cave76 (Apr 18, 2014)

MadCook---- that sounds delicious, but being a Yank, I've never actually had one (but Cornish Pasties are available here in some places I've been).


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## taxlady (Apr 18, 2014)

I had a seafood pie at an Irish pub. It was good except it had a fair bit of salmon and I don't like cooked salmon.


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## Addie (Apr 19, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> Lots of recipes on Google - some bad, some good. Fish "pie" varies from boring nursery food to good enough for a dinner party. I hope mine will be the latter.
> 
> I'm including giant prawns #1. (*shrimp, to you*), cod and salmon.
> 
> ...



*#1.* You seemed to be well versed in the names we have for of our common foods. 

*#2.* I used to buy milk from Jersey cows. It is so rich. Grant you, they don't give you the amount that you get from Holsteins, but it is so much better!


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## Mad Cook (Apr 20, 2014)

taxlady said:


> I had a seafood pie at an Irish pub. It was good except it had a fair bit of salmon and I don't like cooked salmon.


Salmon isn't essential but we like it so in it goes. You can use whatever you've got/can get hold of. I sometimes use "proper" smoked haddock (as opposed to the artificially coloured and flavoured "pretend" - bleuch!) which is tasty. I've used cod and squid with the prawns before now and have some squid in the freezer but cousin's husband isn't very adventurous!


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## Mad Cook (Apr 20, 2014)

Addie said:


> *#1.* You seemed to be well versed in the names we have for of our common foods.
> 
> *#2.* I used to buy milk from Jersey cows. It is so rich. Grant you, they don't give you the amount that you get from Holsteins, but it is so much better!


*#1*. I watch a lot of Ina Garten and other American cooks on FN. I hope you don't think I'm showing off when I "translate" ingredients but sometimes it can be a bit confusing. Shrimp to us are tiny little things and even a small mouthful involves a lot of them and you have cuts of meat which sound the same as ours often aren't. 

*#2.* I rarely buy Jersey milk as I don't like milk to drink and prefer semi-skimmed in tea but I splurge occasionally for a dish like this. I might have used double ("heavy", I think - oops, at it again!) cream and ordinary milk if I hadn't spotted the Channel Islands milk. I noticed as well, that it's non-homogenised which is rare over here these days. when I was little I used to have "top of the milk" (ie the cream that floats on top of the old-fashioned milk) on my cereal in the morning and my grandmother used to insist that the first cup of tea of the day had to have the "top of the milk" in it because it was good for you (how things change!).


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## Addie (Apr 20, 2014)

Mad Cook said:


> *#1*. *#2.* I rarely buy Jersey milk as I don't like milk to drink and prefer semi-skimmed in tea but I splurge occasionally for a dish like this. I might have used double ("heavy", I think - oops, at it again!) cream and ordinary milk if I hadn't spotted the Channel Islands milk. I noticed as well, that it's non-homogenised which is rare over here these days. when I was little I used to have "top of the milk" (ie the cream that floats on top of the old-fashioned milk) on my cereal in the morning and my grandmother used to insist that the first cup of tea of the day had to have the "top of the milk" in it because it was good for you (how things change!).



Can't find "top of the milk" here anymore. Can't even find non homogenized milk.


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