Monday 23 August 2004

A delicious fish pie.

Everyone who ate this on Saturday says it was just the best fish pie, like, ever, so I shall now share the recipe.

You will need:
Fish. Whatever kind you like. I usually use half-and-half smoked and unsmoked fish. On Saturday, it was smoked coley, which is dirt cheap and very tasty, and salmon fillet. I was going to get haddock, but the salmon was cheaper, wonderfully enough. If I remember correctly, I had about 300g of each, but don't go relying on that figure.
Eggs. I used 3.
2 or 3 Leeks.
An onion.
A handful of cheese. Mature cheddar's always a good bet. It is verily the king of cheese. Don't use Scottish cheddar, though: it's shite.
Breadcrumbs.
Flour.
Butter.
Milk.
Double cream.
Nutmeg.
Parsley.

Hard-boil the eggs.

Chop the fish into chunk-sized chunks and put them, higgledy-piggledy, in an oven dish. Chop the hard-boiled eggs into quarters and place them amongst the fish. Grind a bit of salt and plenty of black pepper onto it all.

Dice the onion and chop the leeks, and fry them in a little oil. Keep frying them for, oh, ages, stirring occasionally.

Grate the cheese. Make a bechamel sauce. (This is done by melting some butter in a saucepan, adding a bit of flour and mixing them together, heating all the while, then gradually adding milk and stirring continuously until you get a smooth white sauce. If you've never done this, you might need a couple of practice runs to do it non-lumpily.) Add black pepper, some nutmeg, and as much grated cheese as you like to the sauce, and keep stirring until all the cheese has melted. You might want to add salt to the sauce, but it depends on the type of cheese. Mature cheddar is pretty salty, so I didn't.

Make sure the heat under the frying onions and leeks is turned up to maximum, and pour some double cream over them. Let that simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally. Then pour it into the cheese sauce. Stir them together, then pour the mixture over the fish.

Cover the pie with breadcrumbs, then cover the breadcrumbs with grated cheese, then add another layer of breadcrumbs. Grind plenty of pepper and salt over the top.

Stick it in a medium oven (that's heat, not size) for half an hour or so.

Eat. Enjoy.


Update:

"But what do I do with the parsley?" I hear you cry. You chop it up and have a little bowl of it on the table to sprinkle over your pie as you see fit. Or you put it in the cheese sauce. Or both.

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