Fish Pie - A Family Favourite

I struggle a bit sometimes to find good ways to serve fish for all of us. So this was a great find. It is a Jamie Oliver recipe I found on-line. It is easy and delicious and the whole family enjoy it so we have it fairly frequently! I usually use salmon, whatever white fish looks good and some green prawns. The original recipe had a smoked fish but I'm not so keen on haddock. The cheese seems odd in the recipe - but it is just enough to give a richness - you don't really taste it as cheesy. It works.

ingredients

• 300g salmon fillets, skin off and bones removed

• 300g white fish (I used John Dory today) skin off and bones removed

• 125g king prawns, raw, peeled

• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

• 1kg potatoes

• 1 carrot 

• 2 sticks of celery

• 150g good Cheddar cheese

• 1 lemon

• ½ a fresh red chilli

• 4 sprigs of fresh flat-leaf parsley 

• olive oil

•  a good handful of baby spinach, chopped

•  a couple of ripe tomatoes, quartered

method

• Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6 and bring a large pan of salted water to the boil 
• Peel the potatoes and cut into 2cm chunks 
• Once the water is boiling, add your potatoes and cook for around 12 minutes, until soft (you can stick your knife into them to check) 

• Peel the carrot    

• Meanwhile, get yourself a deep baking tray or earthenware dish and stand a box grater in it 

I love this bit - a colourful tower!

• Grate the celery, carrot and Cheddar on the coarse side of the grater 
• Use the fine side of the grater to grate the zest from the lemon 
• Finely grate or chop your chilli 
• Finely chop the parsley leaves and stalks and add these to the tray

• Cut the salmon and smoked haddock into bite-size chunks and add to the tray with the prawns 

• Squeeze over the juice from the zested lemon (no pips please!), drizzle with olive oil and add a good pinch of salt and pepper 
• If you want to add any spinach or tomatoes, do it now 
• Mix everything together really well 

 • By now your potatoes should be cooked, so drain them in a colander and return them to the pan 
• Drizzle with a couple of good lugs of olive oil and add a pinch of salt and pepper 
• Mash until nice and smooth, then spread evenly over the top of the fish and grated veg 

• Place in the preheated oven for around 40 minutes, or until cooked through, crispy and golden on top 
• Serve piping hot with tomato sauce, steamed veg or a lovely green salad

Wouldn't normally add tomato sauce - but it's in Jamie Oliver's Recipe and now Eva knows that  there's no stopping it! 

Nicola