Pieminister's Salmon, Prawn and Haddock Pie

By Chris

Main Ingredients:

• 300g salmon fillet
• 300g haddock fillet
• 400g prawns
• Mashed potatoes
• Chives, parsley and cheese

After nearly 11 months of Hugh, Delia and Jamie, we branched out this week with a guest recipe. We first came across Pieminister at 2000 Trees Festival and their gourmet grub went down a storm in a field in Gloucestershire. Now the franchise has published its first cookbook and we took a leaf out of our friend Jessie's book (quite literally) and went for the Pieminister fish pie, which is also known as Pietanic.

Like its namesake, this pie was quite an epic creation that took a few hours to make and was more than a little bit problematic. The salmon and haddock was skinned (fiddly!) and the skins were used (alongside half an onion and a bay leaf) to infuse a fishy flavour into 750mls of milk. Any recipe that says: "heat the milk until it is almost boiling" is asking for trouble and sure enough I made a right mess of this stage.

The raw fish was then arranged in a giant casserole dish with chopped chives and parsley, and whole capers. The recipe called for a further 300g of smoked haddock, but this seemed like fish overload to me, so I left it out. As if simmering the infused milk wasn't hassle enough, I then had to turn it into a white sauce by slowly adding it to some butter and flour. The final touch was a few teaspoons of wholegrain mustard to give the sauce a lovely speckled appearance.

That's where the complicated bit ends - top with mashed potatoes and bake for 25 minutes at gas mark 6 (200 degrees C). Served up with buttery kale and a glass of white, this went down a treat - the individual chunks of salmon and haddock held their shape nicely and there was a veritable ocean of prawns. 

Best of all there will be plenty left over for days to come. This would have comfortably served six at £2.48 a head, but it's worth noting that this is a recipe that is only worth making in a seriously big batch.

Best for... Autumn comfort food with a classy twist

Taken from... Pieminister - A Pie For All Seasons

Helen says... This is a favourite meal of mine anyway but I especially liked the contrast between the sweet white fish and salty capers and prawns. Well done to Chris for overcoming his phobia too!