Cheese, leek and fish pie
I've had a fish pie recipe here for a while now; a fairly traditional pie with eggs in it and mash on it. Recently, though, my favour has shifted to a slightly different type of fish pie with a lovely flavour. It's adapted from a Good Housekeeping recipe, and it's about time I shared it. I hope you like it too
Ingredients
- 700-800g old potatoes
- 500g white fish (anything you fancy will do)
- 2 small or 1 large leeks
- 75g butter
- freshly grated nutmeg to taste (and therefore optional)
- 3 tablespoons plain flour
- 150g blue cheese (my personal favourite is blue Shropshire, but use whatever you fancy)
- 100ml single cream
- 250g peeled cooked prawns (or other seafood you fancy)
- 400ml milk
Method
- Peel the potatoes.
- Cut the potatoes into 5-10 mm slices.
- Put into a pan of boiling water.
- Bring the pan back up the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes, cover with cold water to cool them and drain again, then set them aside.
- Place the fish in a frying pan.
- Add enough milk to just cover the fish.
- Heat until the fish is just cooked on one side.
- Turn over and repeat (it shouldn't take as long this time).
- Flake the fish into a baking dish, throwing out any skin and bones.
- Top the milk up to the total 400ml in a measuring jug.
- Wash the leeks and cut into 1cm slices.
- Melt 25g butter in the frying pan the fish was cooked in.
- Add the leeks and cook for 3 minutes.
- Mix in the nutmeg (if using) and add to the baking dish.
- If your oven requires pre-heating, now would be a good sort of time to set to 190°C, or 170°C for a fan oven.
- In a pan, melt the remaining 50g butter.
- Add the flour, then cook stirring for a minute.
- Take off the heat.
- Gradually blend in the milk in the measuring jug. It's important to do this slowly to start off with to avoid lumps.
- Return the pan to the heat and cook, stirring.
- The sauce will suddenly thicken after a while — remove from the heat at this point.
- Crumble the cheese in.
- Stir in the cream.
- Add half the sauce to the baking dish.
- Add the prawns or other seafood.
- Stir the contents of the baking dish.
- Layer the potatoes over the filling.
- Pour the remaining sauce over the top.
- Bake at 190°C (170°C for a fan oven) for about 45 minutes.
- Enjoy!
As with all recipes, please do send in suggestions for improvements or any other comments, as I'd love to hear them.