Fish Pie to me really is comfort food. Creamy sauce, chunks of beautiful flaky fish and fluffy, cheesy mashed potato. It’s not difficult to make, it just takes a little time. It’s a great prepare ahead dish if you bring it up to room temperature an hour or so before you want to cook it. We’ve had cold foggy days, gloriously sunshiny days…it’s so hard to know what to cook. This always seems to fit the bill though!
You can keep it basic for a mid week family meal, or if you add scallops, prawns, capers and a mix of your favourite fish it really can be grand enough for entertaining. The choice is yours, you don’t need to be rigid with the measurements…make it your own! I make my bechamel the easy, all-in-one way and use olive oil instead of butter, but do feel free to make it the more traditional way making a roux of flour and butter then gradually adding the milk if you prefer.
Ingredients (to serve 4 generously)
- Approx 400g of mixed fish (I used cod, smoked haddock, salmon and prawns)
- 2 hard boiled eggs, peeled and chopped into chunks
- Approx 1kg floury potatoes, peeled and boiled until soft enough to mash
- Olive oil (or butter to add to the mash plus about 100ml of milk)
- 450ml of milk (full fat or semi skimmed)
- A bay leaf and a few peppercorns
- 2 heaped tablespoons of plain flour
- 1 tablespoon of olive oil
- A cup of frozen peas or 2 cups of washed fresh spinach
- About 2 tablespoons of grated cheese (I used cheddar)
- Salt and pepper
- Optional: a tablespoon each of finely chopped parsley, capers and gherkins
Place the fish in the milk with the bay leaf and peppercorns and heat gently. Once bubbles appear on the surface of the milk, remove the fish with a slotted spoon and set aside. Allow the milk to cool completely. This stage can be carried out the day before if it’s easier.
Add the flour and olive oil to the cold milk and bring gently to a simmer, whisking as you do. The sauce will start to thicken. Simmer for 2 or 3 minutes then remove from the heat. Break the fish into chunks then stir into the white sauce with the chopped egg and capers, gherkins and parsley if using. Now add the frozen peas (no need to defrost, they’ll cook in the oven) or spinach and stir to mix in well. Season, taste and adjust if necessary.
Pour the mixture into an ovenproof bowl (deep enough for a layer of mashed potato on top). Allow to cool down a little.
Mash the cooked potatoes while they are still hot, adding a generous slug of olive oil or a large knob of butter as you mash. When it’s free of lumps, whisk in the milk adding enough to give a soft, smooth purée that will hold its shape. Don’t use all the milk if it starts looking too wet, add extra if the potatoes are particularly dry.
Spoon (or pipe, if you’re that way inclined) the potato on top of the fish. Run a fork over it if you haven’t piped it as this will give you lots of lovely tiny peaks which will go brown and crunchy in the oven.
Bake at 180° fan (190° regular oven) for 30 minutes then sprinkle the grated cheese over the potato and bake for a further 10 minutes until the pie is bubbling and browned.
Leave to stand for 5 minutes before serving. Enjoy the fish pie love and hopefully someone else will offer to do the washing up…
Chica Andaluza 
I absolutely love fish pie but The Management isn’t so keen. Sometimes I accidentally forget that 😉.
I sometimes accidentally forget that Big Man doesn’t love certain foods as much as me too 😉
That looks delicious! I was press ganged (it didn’t take much arm twisting) into cooking a fish pie for 10, at a friend’s diner party, just before Christmas – there were no leftovers! I did a variation on the Sheekey’s recipe, which is fairly close to yours. I added chopped boiled eggs, though they don’t.
Ooh I bet that was so good!
One of our favourites, never had it with boiled eggs. Next time we will. Real comfort food and a great way to eat fish. XXX S & D
Ooh, try it with the eggs, it’s lovely! Got your messages..hope you had a good birthday and got my voicemail!
Looks fabulous, Tanya 🙂 🙂 I didn’t know that easy way with the sauce. I have some cauli I want to make cheese sauce for so I’ll give it a try. 🙂 I never seem to have enough mash to reach the edges. More milk?
Oh yes, more milk…I love a really smooth purée like French mashed potato…a little extra butter never goes amiss 😉
I can taste this now! And when I make it scallops and prawns will definitely be part even should I be cooking for myself and on a weekday ! As a famous face care ad says ‘I’m worth it’ 🙂 ! Oh, spinach for me: oddly I love peapods but not the ‘fruit’ they bear . . .
A little luxury nevers hurts!
One of our favourites, Danny puts cheese in with tatties when he mashes them. Yum, yum. XXX S & D
You may get this three times, keeps going into sybor space.
It’s interesting, as your fish pie is what we call here in Sweden a fiskgratäng or fish gratin and our fiskpaj (fish pie) is more of a fish quiche. I was curious to see how your fish pie and our fiskgratäng differed. Actually, not that much. The boiled egg is not normally in ours, although we do put an egg yolk or two in the potato mash. Most often we use salmon as the fish, although cod is also used as well and we leave the center of the gratin uncovered. I so enjoy comparing dishes from other areas that are similar. We’ll be giving your fish pie a try soon.
Ron, I think your fish tart sounds good too. I too love to see the similarities and differences in the dishes we all cook and eat in our different countries!
This is lovely. I love the addition of the eggs. Last Thanksgiving my daughter brought home her British boyfriend for us to meet. For our first meal, I made a fish pie. I think he was very happy with it. It was indeed like a big hug!
Oh I bet he was happy!
So very nice to see a post from you Tanya and what a nice recipe it is…thank you!
Thank you Karen!
Ooo, think you will have to make this for me one day again when we are able to visit with each other. Absolutely hug in an oven dish.
Have a beautiful day friend.
🙂 Mandy xo
Now wouldn’t that be fun! One day, one day 😀
I agree, this really does sound like lovely comfort food! Made with scallops it must be heavenly!
I really like this food, I will try it.
I think when we are in Europe next month I should make a version of this with the scallops, prawns and capers. We don’t get decent scallops here so that is always a treat 🙂
Very tasty food I think that is a very nice yaaa mi.
Thank you so much for your great information ya min. I wanna make a this delicious food for iftar. Thanks for inform
Thanks for your information ya min. I’m so happy when I got the nice and tasty recipes.
Thank you so much for your great information ya min. I’m so happy and enjoyed with that. So Thanks a lot and nice information
This looks fantastic! Well done.
Thank you😁