Adam Byatt's Fish Pie Recipe

Okay here's a real British classic fish pie but just on my way with a few little changes on the way. Okay so first thing we've got there Sam we've got a few frozen peas in there with a bit of butter, a little bit of salt and this will all make sense in a minute. We'll start with those for the time being. Okay it's very simple we're not going to make this complicated we're going to make a nice simple fish pie. I think a fish pie needs lovely fish in a creamy sauce. I like to put the peas in there as well and that's really important because I like the sweetness I like the texture. So in here we're going to have milk and this is the base of the sauce for us. Into this pan we're going to add our fish and the reason we're doing that now so I've got some nice cod, cod loin like that. Nice big cod loin you can use cod tail cheaper if it's a fish not a problem I've just got cod loin hanging around here in the restaurant as you do, lucky me. I'm going to add some smoked haddock I think the smoked haddock is really important undyed so you don't have all that sort of nastiness in there so nice undyed smoked haddock into there. Cod in there as well in the milk and we're basically infusing this milk so we can use the milk to make a lovely bechamel and get extra flavour into the sauce as well. I've got some semi-smoked salmon here you could just use normal salmon but I like the semi-smoked because it adds a real another depth in there I like the smokiness in a fish pie so a bit of salmon bit of cod bit of haddock and then after that it's really just going to be a few prawns few shrimps and a bit of cockles in there. The other thing with fish pie is classically there's egg in there chopped egg whole egg things like that I don't know maybe if I can get some if I've got quail eggs downstairs we'll put a cup of quail eggs in it it'd be quite nice but not my first okay we've got some fresh mint here fresh mint into those peas frozen peas I love frozen peas they are a great product and I use them all the time so all we need to do is just put that lovely fresh mint through the peas that can then go into our dish like so and I'm just going to get my trusty helper just to crush those with a fork just smash them down a little bit with a fork so they've got more of a sticky base from which to lay my fish on top so we'll come back to that in a sec back to our fish so again a recap that's the cod smoked haddock smoked semi-smoked salmon or smoked salmon or fresh salmon whatever you like a couple of bay leaves in there bit of fresh thyme sort of perfume that lovely milk really nicely we're going to go with some nice black pepper I'm going to go with some salt in there as well even though that fish is seasoned this is our end sauce this liquid so it's really important that we get as much flavor in there as possible just bring that up to a simmer you don't want to cook this all the way through you just want to set the fish that's all it is if you don't do this and you add the fish raw to fish pie what happens is the fish cooks and it bleeds out and makes a wet sloppy fish pie no one likes a sloppy fish pie this is not new let me show you something look I wrote this book 14 years ago I wrote this book right ultimate fish pie ultimate wow there you go look see that peas mash fish cockles I've never changed it I've always done that beautiful shame you can't buy that book anymore good book that our lovely milk has come to a simmer so that's now going to come off right rest on there's going a new pan so that's going to rest now that fish we just literally to simmer and then off let it rest very important milk's now infused fish is now set new pan on some butter in there because we need to make a roux so in goes that like any roux we need to melt that butter down nicely then we go in with equal quantities of flour and again that's sort of thickening up our sauce right so we're creating a lovely roux using the milk to create the roux to make the lovely bechamel sauce if you like and that's going to be the the fundamental foundation for our sauce all right so a little bit of salt in there now melt all that down we just need to cook out that flour just for a minute or two all right and then that's looking good melt the butter start to fry that butter cook that flour around all right at this point i'm now going to switch over to a whisk a ladle and in is going to go our milk all right very simple let's not complicate this in use a whisk turn it right down to minimum so we're not going to burn anything if you use a really good pan like this you won't burn so that's really important in that goes and get some milk make a nice thick soup sauce and it's just going to be a case of popping all the fish back in till i do need rosy there isn't enough of is chopped dill that'd be perfect now you can just make me some chopped dill that'd be great or ask the boys they might have some downstairs actually if you ask downstairs they might have some just go and steal the hot lard of mise en place they'll love you for that look use a whisk i can make this super smooth look before i go adding more milk so i'm not stressed about any lumps being in there if you just use a whisk get that moving all right nice and thick i mean basically now that's thick and it's cooking out because the heat's on slow and we're gonna start to add back the milk very simple i think it would be a good moment to say that the recipe for this will be in the link below but there is a slight blip here so there's two things adam who is my trusty exec sue that sorts everything out behind the scenes he's the guy that makes all this happen which is why young rose is here today he has had a baby so i want to put out a huge congratulations to adam and to live on the birth of their new baby and it's such a beautiful thing but another trinity baby arrived so that's a beautiful thing young madeline is in the world so i thought it'd be nice to congratulate adam and also manage your expectations on the slickness of this video because it will all be slightly less slick because of the lack of adam but he's at home caring for his new baby no well that sounded like a diss on you but it wasn't okay sam have a look at this here this is nice and thick now pull this off induction off sauce ready to go all right let's make this nice and simple so what we're going to do now in goes all this lovely fish just take off the skin you don't want the skin so just take that and there should there'll be no bones in this so we don't want it like that take off the skin of the haddock look at that lovely haddock i love smoked haddock no bones no skin no junk in there just nice i love smoked haddock have breakfast it's one of my favorite things to eat it's a really good this is from moxons my friend at moxons i love that's my talent skin there's that cod look barely cooked cod that's all good because it's going to cook again in the oven don't forget yeah it's going back in so that's fine so it's still going to have some texture there's a cod no barely is a bit chewy a lovely salmon i don't eat it very often i don't necessarily trust it it's one of those dishes that i need to know who's cooked it it need if you don't make a fish pie with love and care and a real sense of intention i think it can be one of those real throwaway things that people just pull together and doesn't have the love and i worry about that quite a lot it's probably a me problem okay we've got some prawns here put that back there a second lose that rose lose that for me all right what we've got here we've got some lovely prawns that we've defrosted and taken the veins out of we're just going to fold those through i'm not going to go eggs controversial sam a lot of people put eggs in fish pie i do not i don't mind it in there i just if i was going to make my ultimate fish pie that would be perfect for me no eggs but you know i'm not i'm not against it i still eat it with with eggs in it prawns going raw they can they're not going to bleed out hugely so i'm not worried about those this is a nice place to use your spring onion tops you perhaps don't normally use they add you're sort of putting chopped chives in there on speed you know you're sort of this is your chives plus and that goes in there for a nice bit of greenery really lovely also goes in there some chopped dill i think that's really important so it's chopped dill chopped spring onions got in there this is a little bit of chopped parsley roughly chopped parsley because i'm quite bougie i'm also going to add a few of these lovely brown shrimps that i love morcambe shrimp and put a few of those in there not too many because they are super expensive all right and then all we're going to do now let's give that a really good mix together we don't want to smash it all up we're just folding right i'm not trying to smash this thing up folding i think the key here as well plenty of sauce as well plenty of sauce and that remember that sauce is super infused with all that smoked fish and this is the easiest way to make fish pie big chunky bits of fish really important so you've got texture throughout the dish so when you're eating it you know what you're eating you're not just getting mush that would be horrible that's why i think that is very important i have to keep telling you why it's important now don't i it's very important it's all very important sam there's my pan very important it's not really right in to the top of the peas goes the fish all that needs now is some lovely mashed potato look at that how easy was that that was in real time as well so i hold that like that and then we're just going to get some so there we go there's my fish pie peas on the bottom remember we've got our lovely mix there keeping it nice and simple spring onions bringing stuff in there peas bringing the sweetness this is pomme du chef so it's like mashed potato not that one you all loved when i made mashed potato this is mashed potato with egg yolks in it and a little bit of parmesan just to bring that nice rich and coloration that goes in the oven as well so what we're going to do now is just pipe that can i get there that would be really nice if i can get that to work because okay what we're going to do now push that in like that i like to put some nice cockles on the top they open up as you cook them they bleed through and they give us a really nice finish on the these are cockles i've also checked these cockles are not gritty because let's put that's a big mother one there i've also checked i'll open these and make sure they're not gritty because sometimes they're really gritty you have to be quite careful you've done anything with these like washing them yeah i've just washed these for about 20 minutes under running water and then pop them on top like that would it work with a muscle chef yeah we do we do them with muscles that be straining at the moment when we can't get cockles so that's absolutely fine you can use clams less so because clams are just a bit smaller they cook a bit quick alright that's enough on there so there's my fish pie ready for the oven done in under 20 minutes straight in nice oven preset to 190 degrees and it just wants about 20 minutes in there fine on the go all right mr fish pie that's had 35 minutes in the oven look at that guy i mean the cockles do overcook a little bit but that is a thing of beauty and you know it doesn't take long takes 30 minutes if you cook it properly very simple to do actually it's about setting that fish beforehand so it doesn't get wet in there a bit of spring onions adding a bit of egg yolk to the mashed potatoes a little bit of garnish on top for a bit of exuberance and then just making sure that sauce is utterly delicious a bit of dill that's really important and don't forget the sweet peas i love a frozen pea a couple of those there like so on the side and let's go like this there we go that that is a delicious thing that is a delicious fish pie so i guess it's almost like a lazy fish pie because i would always have peas on the side of a fish pie always but this is just a kind of a way of having the peas already in there it just saves a bit of time a bit lazy lazy but bloody delicious i love a fish pie when i make it baked beans with a fish pie baked beans with a fish pie not in a million years they are obviously they're overcooked because they're cooked longer than the fish pie but they are utterly delicious they're like fried cockles i used to do a dish with fried cockles it reminds me of those quite a lot there you go mega fish pie