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| How To Make Quick & Easy Lemon Chicken |
Who says beige has to be dull? A meal with mashed potatoes as a splash
of color isn’t going to win any style awards, but fish pie knows how to
play to its strengths. It’s the warm, cuddly equivalent of settling down
with a mug of tea for a Sunday afternoon flick – and the ideal vehicle
for Hugh Fearnley-latest Whittingstall’s campaign’s sustainable seafood
message. When flounder is covered in a creamy, savory sauce behind a
crowd-pleasing crust of fluffy mash, who could not feel a flutter for
it, or be passionate about pollack?
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| How To Cook A Perfect Fish Pie |
White Sauce
We’ve chosen Nigel Slater’s recipe as our control since it’s one of
the simplest we could find, plus the man can’t go wrong when it comes to
comfort food. The fish is poached in milk until opaque and soft, then
drained and combined with a roux to produce a basic white sauce with
chopped parsley and dill. It’s comfortingly thick, but indisputably
bland – possibly on purpose – and the pre-cooked fish is, dare I say, a
little rubbery after 40 minutes in a 180C oven.
Alternative White Sauce
Marco Pierre White uses stock in his fish pie – after all, he has
described the cubes he’s paid to sponsor as “the best fucking ingredient
in the world” – but his willingness to embrace them doesn’t exactly
inspire confidence in the earnest devotee of the amateur stockpot.
Marco’s recipe is intriguing in that it foregoes the white sauce
entirely, so I give it a shot, softening shallots in butter before
deglazing the pan with vermouth and white wine, reducing them to a
syrup, and then adding fish stock (Marco doesn’t specify what kind in
this recipe, so I take his word for it and use cubes from a leading
brand) and reducing it again. It’s ready to use once you’ve added some
double cream and let it simmer for a few minutes.
Filling
A fish pie is a versatile dish; as Jamie Oliver points out, you can
use any seafood you like, from mackerel to mussels, so it’s a great way
to try out different flavors. I agree with Nigel Slater that the base
should be a delicately flavored, hard white fish, preferably something
similar to cod but with a larger population, such as pollack or coley.
Something smoked is also a must (the savory richness adds depth to
the sauce; superb smoked haddock is readily available online), as is a
little of shellfish for diversity. Mussels are “cheap, juicy, and add
gobs of flavour,” according to Nigel, but I find the texture
off-putting; sweet small North Atlantic prawns are better to my taste,
and offer a splash of color as well. (I believe scallops, tiger prawns,
and other seafood are wasted here.) Some people like to add salmon for a
pop of color; but, if you chop it too small, it will be woolly and
overdone. Sautéed leeks and spinach work well in a fish pie to bulk out
the filling, and spinach has the extra benefit of not requiring any
pre-cooking.
Topping
A word about that seductive golden top I mentioned earlier; Angela
Boggiano’s smoked fish and cider recipe in her succinctly-titled Pie
uses a pastry crust, and Nigel Slater suggests a most unorthodox crumble
mixture (which I consider 10 kinds of wrong), but nothing beats a cloud
of fluffy mash for sheer comfort – nothing else soaks up the sauce in
quite the same way. You can also top yours with a few breadcrumbs to
give crunch in homage to J Sheekey (purveyors of the best fish pies in
London): adding anything further to a properly seasoned mash is gilding
the lily in our opinion, but you can follow their lead and sprinkle over
a little Parmesan if you’re feeling luxurious.
Ingredients List
Here are all the ingredients needed for your perfect fish pie:
This is a beautiful traditionally British dish that you and your co-eaters will surely enjoy.
How To Cook A Perfect Fish Pie
RépondreSupprimerWho says beige has to be dull? A meal with mashed potatoes as a splash of color isn’t going to win any style awards, but fish pie knows how to play to its strengths. It’s the warm, cuddly equivalent of settling down with a mug of tea for a Sunday afternoon flick – and the ideal vehicle for Hugh Fearnley-latest Whittingstall’s campaign’s sustainable seafood message. When flounder is covered in a creamy, savory sauce behind a crowd-pleasing crust of fluffy mash, who could not feel a flutter for it, or be passionate about pollack?
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