Fish Fry? NO! FISH PIE!

When I first came to England, a frozen store bought version was the first I tried. I thought it sounded disgusting…to an American we think of pie as a sweet treat, hardly ever as a delightful entrée for a meal. But when I had it, it was one of the most delicious things I’ve eaten in the UK. I’ve tried to recreate it several times, and sometimes I was more successful than others. This is my most successful dish yet(if you’re looking for my low fat version), but you know, sometimes you have to let loose and just try new things, even if it means ruining your dinner! I hope you dare to try my dish, I’ve also cut corners to lower calories and make it easy as possible. I’ll specify where I cut corners if you want to try it the regular way.

Ingredients For the pie filling:
1 sachet of Coleman’s white sauce mix (for Americans just a packet of white pasta sauce mix)
300ml milk (whatever the packet calls for) plus extra for thinning the sauce if it gets too thick
1 c fresh spinach or half cup frozen spinach thoroughly defrosted and drained
350g fish pie mix (Tesco, Sainsbury’s) or 12oz cod, salmon, smoked haddock, shrimp (Smoked fish is key)

Ingredients for Mash:
4-5 small potatoes (new potatoes) 300g
1 head cauliflower (if you don’t want to cut calories omit cauliflower and use more potatoes about 600g)
1 egg yolk
¼ c freshly grated Parmesan cheese (75g)
2 tbsp milk

To start:
1. Peel potatoes, and get them boiling in a pot of water. (if using all potatoes just cook till tender and move to step 4)
2. Chop all cauliflower florets and put them in a steamer (my steamer went right on top of my potatoes)
3. Start the pie filling-
a. Start the white sauce mix as the package instructs, as it thickens add spinach, and fish to lightly poach. Bring to a simmer until the fish have become opaque and the spinach and everything is cooking about 15mins. Lightly simmer as you prepare the mash

4. Steam the cauliflower until tender. When everything is ready to be mashed, mash like you know how, add the Parmesan, milk and egg yolk.

5. Pour the pie filling into a casserole dish, top with spoonful’s of mash and you can optionally grate a tiny amount of Parmesan on top for color.
Bake at ~160C for about 30-45mins or until bubbly (350F) I’ve posted a lot of pictures to show the process.