Smoked Fish Pie
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 6-8
- Category: Savoury Pies
Description
Melt-in-mouth smoked snoek in a deliciously creamy and velvety sauce topped with golden brown puff pastry.
Ingredients
Filling
olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 large leek, chopped
1 large stalk of celery, chopped
1 large carrot, chopped into small blocks
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
100 g shimeji mushrooms
40 g flour
1 C (250 ml) milk
1 C (250 ml) fresh cream
1 Tbsp (15 ml) chopped fresh thyme
3 fronds fresh dill, chopped
1 C (250 ml) frozen peas
zest and juice of 1 lemon
¼ C (60 ml) chopped flat leaf parsley
1 kg smoked snoek, sliced into bite-size chunks (smoked haddock works well as a substitute if you can’t find snoek).
Pastry
1 egg, beaten
2 rolls of puff pastry, defrosted until workable
4 cm round cookie cutter
Instructions
Filling
Set a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Heat a glug of olive oil then add the onion, leek, celery and carrot and fry until the veggies soften. Add the garlic and mushrooms and fry for another minute until fragrant. Add the flour and stir fry for a minute to cook out the flour. Add the milk, cream, thyme and dill and mix to combine.
Bring to a simmer to thicken the mixture. Add the peas, lemon zest and juice then season to taste and remove the pan from the heat. Let the mixture cool completely.
Preheat the oven to 210 ºC. Add the fish to your pie dish, then spoon the cooled mixture over it. It will be very thick but not to worry, the fish will release moisture when it cooks, leaving you with a creamy sauce. Make sure the filling comes up to the edge of the baking dish so that there is a base for the pastry to lay on.
Pastry
Dust a work surface with flour; unroll the pastry and use the cookie cutter to cut out rounds of pastry. Brush the edge of your baking dish with egg wash then start layering the pastry circles in an overlapping pattern to mimic scales. Brush the top of the pastry with egg wash, then bake for 30-40 minutes until golden.
Serve with a side of buttery mash.
