Classic Fish Pie Recipe

COOK meals are perfect for when you fancy a night off cooking … something even the most passionate home cook needs now and again. But how do our prices compare with making it yourself?

We followed our recipe for two for Classic Fish Pie at home and found it was more expensive getting the ingredients from the supermarket.

We based this on checking Sainsbury’s online ingredient prices in October 22 and now we have updated to most recent prices in February 22, for a two portion recipe. We didn't include ingredients we had in the fridge or kitchen cupboard (including any alcohol) and used the smallest available amounts of what we needed.

Our shopping list for the recipe below included:  tiger prawns, fish pie mix, 1 small onion, fish stock, double cream, parsley and baking potatoes. Everything else we had already (including the white wine and the sherry!).

If you'd prefer to make it yourself, our recipe for a 2 portion is below.  As freezer connoisseurs we'd always recommend batch cooking for the absolute best value recipe - scroll to the end for some tips.

Classic Fish Pie Recipe

Ingredients:

• • 60g Tiger Prawns 
  • 175g Fish Pie Mix 
  • 20g Plain Flour 
  • 20g Butter
  • 1/2 Small Onion, finely chopped 
  • 1/2 Lemon, juiced
  • 175ml Fish Stock
  • 65ml Dry White Wine
  • 65ml Dry Sherry
  • 40ml Double Cream
  • 45ml Semi Skimmed Milk 
  • 1/2 tsp Parsley, chopped
  • Salt & Pepper, to taste
  • 350g Baking Potatoes
  • 1 Egg Yolk
  • 10g Butter
  • Salt & Pepper, to taste 
  • Paprika, pinch

Method: 

STEP 1. Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5.

STEP 2. In a large saucepan, cover the 350g potatoes which you've peeled and chopped, in salted cold water, bring to the boil and simmer until tender. Drain well, then allow to steam-dry for a few mins. Mash well with the 12g of butter. Stir through the egg yolks until fully incorporated, then season to taste with salt and ground white pepper.

STEP 3. Heat the milk in a large pan, then add the diced smoked haddock and salmon. Bring the milk to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer gently until cooked. If using raw prawns poach these too. Remove the fish from the pan and set aside to cool slightly. Reserve the milk in the pan adding the 175ml of fish stock.

STEP 4. Heat the butter in a pan and gently fry the onions for 3-4 minutes, until softened but not browned. Add the sherry, white wine & lemon juice and reduce until the liquid almost evaporates, and the onions begin to sizzle, switch off. Add the flour and stir well. Gradually spoon in the milk/fish stock from poaching the fish stirring well and heat gently until the sauce has thickened. Add the cream and chopped parsley taste the sauce and season if necessary. The sauce should have the consistency of double cream, if its slightly thicker add a little water.

STEP 5. Spoon the fish into the bottom of the dish evenly spreading out and pour over the hot sauce. Carefully top with the mashed potato. Use a fork to spread the mash over the pie and create a rough texture on top. Sprinkle diagonal stripes of paprika on top and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden-brown and bubbling.

Batch it up!

To save money, batch cooking is the way forward – it’s essentially why we can make recipes cheaper than you can at home.

With a bit of forethought, the right kit, space in the freezer and a few hours set aside, you can batch cook yourself by scaling up the quantities above.

A few tips:

• Clean COOK trays can be really useful. Make your portion, freeze in the tray, then, once frozen, pop out and wrap in cling film to store (or, if you have lots of trays, just store in the tray).
• To reheat from frozen, pop the frozen block into one of our ceramic dishes and cook at about 170C until piping hot.

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