Fish Pie

There are lots of different fish pie recipes on the web and a few in my cookery books. Not that I use my cookery books very much nowadays. Noting down recipes from TV programmes or the web into my own book has rather replaced the old-fashioned cookery book in my life. This is the recipe I have used for a long time (except that the eggs are an additional touch added recently after tasting Spesh's fish pie).

Ingredients

1 fillet cod
1 fillet smoked haddock
i fillet salmon
(about 750 gram of fish in total)
Parsley sauce to make 1/2 pint.
500 ml Whole Milk
1 stick Celery
I Carrot
Peppercorns
½ Onion
2 hard boiled Eggs.
1 kg Potatoes
2 oz Butter
Frozen Petit Pois or Garden Peas
Parsley
A Bay leaf
Salt
Pepper


(On the go:- back left the potatoes boiling; front left the fish gently cooking; front right the petit pois. Ignore the pan on the back right; that's a separate dish - a beef stew).

Method
Chop the onion and celery. Add these to the milk with a bay leaf, a couple of sprigs of parsley and a few pepper corns.
Add the fish to the milk mixture in a medium saucepan. Bring to the simmer (making sure it doesn’t boil over), cover and turn off the heat. The fish will cook in the hot milk.
Hard boil the eggs.
Boil and mash the potatoes, adding the butter and some salt and pepper.
Heat the petit pois or garden peas in boiling water.
Take the fish out of the milk mixture and gently flake it – but not too finely – into an oven dish.
Chop the boiled eggs and add them to the fish. Add the petis pois. Add a couple of sprigs of chopped parsley.
Sieve the milk mixture throwing away the solids (the celery, carrot, onion, bay leaf and peppercorns) and pour i/2 pint of the flavoured milk over the fish and egg.
Make the parsley sauce and add it to the oven dish.
Very gently stir the mixture a couple of times to mix it together without breaking the fish up too much.
Cover with the mashed potatoes.
Place in a pre-heated oven on 200°C / 400°F / Gas 6.
Cook for about 25 minutes until the mash is going golden brown on top and the fish sauce is bubbling up the sides.

Apple and Sultana Crumble

Ingredients:-
For the fruit:
8 medium apples – peeled and chopped
1 oz soft brown sugar
2 cloves
1 level teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 oz sultanas
2 tablespoons water
3 teaspoons lemon juice


For the Topping:
4 oz wholemeal flour
4 oz plain white flour
5 oz soft brown sugar
3 oz butter at room temperature
1 level teaspoon baking powder.

(I actually use 4 oz of wholemeal flour, 2 oz of plain white flour and 2 oz of gram flour. Gram flour is a flour made from ground chana dal, a legume otherwise known as chickpeas. I think it just gives a slightly different texture to the crumble.)

Tinned custard

Method:-
Place the apples and water into a large saucepan, adding the sultanas, sugar and spices. Cook gently until the apples are soft and fluffy. Spoon the mixture into a pie dish.


Place the flour in a large mixing bowl, sprinkle in the baking powder, then add the butter and rub it into the flour lightly, using your fingertips. Then when it all looks crumbly, and the fat has been dispersed fairly evenly, add the sugar and combine that well with the rest.

Sprinkle the apple mixture with the crumble topping. Using a fork, even it out but don’t press it down. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes in a medium oven (gas mark 4; 350°F; 180°C) until the topping is golden brown.

Serve with hot or cold custard.

Recipe for humour

How come when you mix water and flour together

you get glue?..


and then you add eggs and sugar...


and you get cake?

Where did the glue go ?

NEED AN ANSWER?

You know darned well where it went!

That's what makes the cake

Stick to your ass..