How do you do your fish pie?

[EqualStevens]

I like a lot of different types of fish - doesn't matter which ones too much but I like to include some prawns, some white fish, some smoked fish and whatever else. Sometimes mussels or cockles or salmon. I poach in 50:50 milk:water then save the poaching liquid to make a sauce thickened with sauce flour and then add fresh chopped parsley, sixthed hard-boiled eggs and peas.

I prefer peas served on the side, but the rest of the family like them in with the sauce. Then I top with a THIN layer of mashed potato (mashed without butter) and bake. Have never been one to top with cheese.

I tried the Jamie Oliver one which involved grating loads of veg and thought it was AWFUL, but he did another lovely one with a really lemony sauce and spinach in the pie and that was nice.

I poach a tesco fish pie mix in milk with a bay leaf, little white pepper. Steam carrots and broccolli then transfer veg and fish into a dish (sometimes add some sweetcorn) and retain the poaching milk. Make a white sauce (sometimes a cheese sauce) with the retained poaching milk and pour over fish and veg, top with mash, sometimes put some sliced tomatoes on top, sometimes cheese, sometimes just leave it as plain old mash, then cook in oven for 20 mins or so. Mine sound a lot less posh than some of the great sounding pies on here and is definitely not a dinner party food but for us its a tasty all in one mid week tea that me and the dc's enjoy.

What is a sauce flour? Is that different to plain flour or cornflour?

These fish pies sound lovely! Definitely added to my list of dinners for next week!

sauce flour is fine and has less gluten than regular flour. It's supposed to make smoother sauces. I've never tried it myself, happy enough using plain.

Sauce flour thickens a white sauce without fat so you can avoid the butter needed to make a roux. I'm dieting and it's one of my staples now.

I suppose you could use cornflour instead, does the same thing really. Actually - I'm not sure how they're different!

Thanks. I've never heard of it but also watching my weight slowly creep up instead of down.

Will I find it with the other flours in Sainsburys?

Yes - it's in a purply packet. I think it was with the baking stuff rather than the flour last time I bought it.

I sometimes mix chopped cooked leeks with the mash potato before putting on top of the fish.

Occasionally, I cheat with a packet white sauce

I always make the Nigella one, the Blakean Fish pie. It has a tiny amount of saffron in to give the sauce some colour. It is a bit of a faff but tastes delicious.