Seafood Pie
Another winter warmer we love. I used to tend to bring the Cully and Sully versions of this to the office and the smell from the microwave would tear down people’s Friday feeling. But they were all chicken fillet roll w**kers so who cares. My mother loves sharing this with me and it is so goddamn comforting. My fiance doesn't like smokey fish in it for example so choose what suits yourself.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 150g butter
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 400g shell-on raw prawns , peeled, heads and shells kept for stock
- 400g smoked haddock , skinned and trimmed (reserve these), flesh diced into large chunks
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 star anise
- 1 shot pernod
- 150ml white wine
- 1.2l whole milk
- 1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder or 1 vegetable stock cube
- 60g plain flour
- 200ml low fat crème fraîche
- 400g skinless white fish fillet, diced into large chunks
- 200g salmon fillet, diced into large chunks
- 2 tbsp capers , drained and finely chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 1 ½kg Marris Piper potatoes
- gruyère or medium cheddar
- 4 spring onions, finely sliced
- 1 tsp Dijon or English mustard
- Bunch of chives finely chopped
- handful frozen sweetcorn
- handful frozen petits pois
Method
- Preheat oven to 200c.
- Grab a pan and lob in 25g butter.
- Heat over medium heat until browning.
- Lob in the shallot and cook for 2 minutes.
- Chuck in your prawn heads, shells and haddock skins.
- Turn up the heat sightly and cook for 7 minutes.
- Throw in your bay leaf and star anise.
- Then your pernod and wine.
- Let it reach a boil.
- Cook it up until all the alcohol has basically evaporated.
- Chuck in 1 litre of milk and the veggie bouillon.
- Lower heat slightly and simmer for 15 minutes.
- Grab a potato masher or something hard to bash and press the shells.
- Remove from the heat and strain, keeping the milky mix.
- Chuck another 60g butter in the pan and put it on low.
- When browned again stir in the flour and cook on low heat.
- Stir in your milk mix first then add the creme fraiche..
- Simmer it up for about 8 minutes.
- At the same time grab another pot and get the spuds to the boil in salted water.
- Spuds should simmer for about 12 minutes.
- Should become a nice thick sauce.
- Remove from the heat.
- Stir in all your fish and prawns, capers and lemon juice.
- Add your peas, sweetcorn, chives and mustard.
- Stir it all up.
- Grab a baking dish and butter it all up inside.
- Scrape your mix into the dish.
- Drain the potatoes now and mash them up.
- Use the remaining milk and butter to mash those babies.
- Spread the mash over the fishy fishy mix in the baking dish.
- Sprinkle with your cheese.
- Chuck it in the oven and cook for 40 minutes.
- Leave to sit and cool slightly for about 10 minutes as it will burn the sh*t out of your mouth!