British Cuisine # 1 - Fish Pie

Last year for my birthday, I was given a beautiful Richard Bramble oven dish with a brilliant fish on it, but it wasn't until the weekend that I realised I had never used it to cook fish. I therefore decided this had to change and went to Sainsbury's to buy all the necessary ingredients to make one of my favourite British dishes: fish pie. The recipe below feeds around 6 people.


Ingredients:
* 25gr butter
* 2 onions finely chopped
* 250ml dry white wine
* 500ml fish stock
* 500ml double cream
* Salt and pepper
* 800 mixed white fish fillets (cod, haddock or, my favourite, monkfish)
* 200gr raw peeled king prawns
* 1 lemon
For the topping you'll need:
* 4 large potatoes (I only used 3 and so could've done with an extra one)
* milk and butter for mashing
* 2 egg yolks

First of all, heat the butter in pan and add the onion and stirr it around under medium heat until soft and a bit brown.

Add the wine and cook until it has reduced by half. Then, add the fish stock and let it bubble away until it has reduced by half again.

Add the cream and let it boil until it has thickened to a sauce. I was so impatient that I didn't, which made my sauce (a) runny and (b) not as tasty as it should have been if I had left it on the pan for longer. As the sauce is really the star of the dish, ideally you'd let it simmer slowly so all the flavour comes out nicely (and if it doesn't thicken, just add a bit of cornflower ;-). Right, once it has a sauce-like consistency, strain through a sieve, discarding the onion, season with salt and pepper and leave to cool.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180 degrees, check the fish for any bones and cut in 3cm chunks. Poach the fish in enough water to cover with a squeeze of lemon juice, and when slightly undercooked, remove fish with a slotted spoon. While fish is being poached, peel, chop and start to boil potatoes (I normally cut potatoes into small cubes so they get soft faster).

Gently fold the prawns and fish into sauce with another squirt of lemon juice. Then, transfer all to an oven dish. When potatoes are ready, mash with butter and milk until smooth. Beat in the egg yolks and spoon over the filling.

Transfer dish to oven and bake for about 20 minutes, until bubbling and golden brown on top.

Enjoy!

The original recipe which inspired this one is a Gordon Ramsay and can be found here.