I’ll admit it, I’m not a big fan of fish. A tin of tuna, I can cope with. But real fish – nope. Too many scary bones and scaly skin and how do you cook it? However, my family do like fish, and if that’s what my mom wants, that’s what I’m going to cook! So last week I set about making a traditional fish pie; poaching real fillets of fish and making my own sauce to create the ultimate admiral’s pie with a thick cheesy topping. Here’s how it went:
Ingredients: 4 x fillets of white fish, 2 handfuls of prawns, 2 sliced white onions, 1 pint milk, 2 tablespoons butter, 2 tablespoons plain flour, 600g potatoes, boiled and mashed with butter and a little milk, 150g grated cheese, salt and pepper.
I began cooking the fish pie by poaching the fillets of fish in the milk, along with the 2 sliced onions. This flavoured the milk and cooked the fish. Towards the end of the poaching process (before the fillets became flakes!) I threw in the prawns and heated through until they turned pink. I then drained fish, prawns and onions from the milk and set aside in the oven dish. I used the milk to make a sauce by melting the butter in a pan, and stirring in the flour to make a roux paste. I then added the poaching milk bit by bit to make a thick white sauce which I poured over the fish and onions in the bottom of the oven dish. I then covered with mashed potato and sprinkled on lots of grated cheese before putting into the oven for 20 minutes until the cheese had melted and turned golden on top.
