One of my favourite comfort foods is fish pie. I love the traditional creamy one, but the loaded one with spinach from Jamie Oliver is perfect if you want to add greens to your diet. I decided to rustle up a fish pie some time ago, but I didn’t have any spinach, only a bunch of coriander. I thought I’d give it a go, and it’s now my go-to fish pie recipe.
I was first introduced to a fish pie when I was training at the Holiday Inn Chelsea in Sloane street in 1985, and I thought it was a rather interesting dish. We eat a lot of fish in the Netherlands, but fish pie isn’t part of our culture. It’s rather strange as the Dutch love mashed potatoes. Our winter comfort food is stamppot, our version of bubble and squeak. The nearest you get fish added to mash potatoes in the Netherlands is a local dish from Scheveningen, where they add a filet of smoked haddock to their carrot/onion stamppot.
Ingredients for 4
- 8 medium-sized flowery potatoes
- 1 cup of milk
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 4 tomatoes, chopped roughly
- 3 or 4 teaspoons of dried chilli flakes (depending on how hot you like it)
- 1,5 bunch of coriander
- 3 teaspoons Dyon Mustard
- 3 dessert spoons of lime juice
- 3 teaspoons of minced garlic
- 500 gr. fish mix ( haddock ( or white fish), smoked haddock and salmon)
- 300 gr. seafood mix ( prawns, mussels and calamari)
- pepper and salt
How to make it
This Fish Pie With Coriander Pesto is perfect if you don’t have a lot of time or entertaining, as you can prepare the fish mixture beforehand and make the mash later. The preparation time is about 15 minutes maximum, and the fish pie only needs 15 minutes in the oven at 200 degrees.
Start with boiling the potatoes. Whilst the potatoes are boiling, you can make the coriander pesto. Put the coriander, mustard, garlic and lime juice in a blender and add olive oil until you have a nice smooth mixture. Do make sure it isn’t too wet. Put the mixture in a bowl. Season it with pepper and salt, and add the chilli flakes and chopped tomatoes. Add the fish and mix it with your hands.
You can now put the fish in a cocotte so you can make individual fish pies (this is how I like it) or in an oven dish. Once the potatoes are finished, cream them slightly with milk and butter. Put the potatoes on top of the fish and sprinkle it with olive oil. Pop it into the oven for about 15 minutes when you use Coccottes. If you use a larger oven dish, it will take about 10 minutes longer.
Enjoy!