Perk up your pies

I'm woefully behind with my posts and have a veritable arms length of them to get up but I thought I'd share this little tip with you quickly.
When you're baking pies, or you could try the same with savoury scones; pop some herbs and ground black pepper in the egg wash over the top.  Whatever takes your fancy really.  This cheese and onion pie benefited from a little oregano, pepper and a squeeze of tomato puree mixed in and liberally sloshed on before baking.  Yum!

Crunchy Topped Fish Pie

Ideal for using up odds and sods of fish in the freezer or buy some pie mix from your local fishmonger (undoubtedly better qulity and value than the stupormarkets - unless it's on the CFC of course), this is a doddle to make, goes a long way, can be a light summery dish or a comforting one for those chillier evenings and best of all is topped with cheesy crunchy breadcrumbs.  No 6 inch layer of mash followed by a game of hunt the prawn here.  This is a FISH pie.  Made of FISH.  It is not an excercise in rebranding a mashed potato pie as it's piscine equivalent in the hope of sqeezing some more pennies out of the poor old public.  You know who I'm talking about here don't you crappy pubs/Youngs &c?  (Did you know there's a whole 18% fish in a Youngs Admirals Pie.  18%?  That's disgusting.  And I had to find that out from S'burys site - they don't tell you on their own.  It's 45% potato - nearly half.  Words fail me.  [Though probably not for long.])  My pie has no potato in it.  Again - NO POTATO.  Don't get me wrong.  I love the spud but there's a place for it and if it's near this dish it's most definitely on the side not in it.  Here the fish is the star.  Even, as previously mentioned, when it's the cheap off cuts and a handful of value prawns.  So - rant over - this is what you do.  Amounts are a little hazy as it depends how big a pie you're making - mine was with a (whisper it) supermarket pie mix from the CFC for 70p with some mussels picked from Exmouth thrown in.

Crunchy Topped Fish Pie
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
Mushrooms - approx 4-5
EVOO
Butter
White wine (optional)
2oz plain flour
0.5 pt milk
S+P
Tarragon - or your preferred herbs - a pinch
Fish
Peas / sweetcorn - to your taste - defrosted if frozen.  I added a little seabeet we had too.
Breadcrumbs
Grated cheese

Put oven on at Gas 6 to heat up.

Put EVOO and butter in pan to heat up.
Chop onion, garlic and mushrooms and fry gently to soften.
After a few mins add a splosh of white wine and raise the heat to boil off the alcohol and reduce the liquid a bit.  Or don't bother with the wine - we had an open bottle to hand so I popped some in.
Meanwhile make the sauce by melting 1oz butter in the microwave. 
Whisk the flour in - 2 rounded tablespoons is a good measure for 2 oz. 
Add a little milk and whisk in to get rid of the lumps then add the rest of the milk and season with S+P and a pinch of tarragon.
Microwave and whisk periodically until thickened and the flour is cooked out.
Lay the raw fish out in the base of your casserole dish and put in the oven to start off.

Mix the onion, garlic and mushrooms into the white sauce and add your veg - peas or whatever you wish.
Pour the sauce over the fish.
Mix the breadcrumbs and grated cheese and sprinkle evenly over the top.

Cook covered in oven for 30 mins-ish dependent on size of pie - until top golden and cheese melted.  Check after 15 mins.  Even with the lid on the crumbs should crisp up nicely.

And that's all there is to it - a fish packed tasty, healthy pie with nary a scrap of watery mash in sight.  You can add your choice of fish - whether as a mix or spoil yourself with just your favourite.  In this way it can be as frugal as you can make it or rather more of a luxury treat for yourself.

Christmassy foodie things - the return of cake sunday

One of the foodie bits I made over chrimble were some filo pastry mince pies. Frankly these are so easy I feel a bit of a fraud giving a 'recipe' so here's a synopsis with pics of the process.

Filo was my choice as t'chap hates pastry having a pathological hatred of fat and has too many times over the years had soggy bottomed pasties putting him right off, I think. I also hate thick pastry - all too often found on bought mince pies, which is a shame as a mince pie is one of the sweet things I like at this time of year. We only had a couple though - the rest came to the pub with us in a much belated return of 'Cake Sunday'.

1 Jar mincemeat - mine was homemade from a friend and boozy and gorgeous it was too!
Filo pastry - note that it needs to be removed from the fridge 20 mins before use - I only realised this on reading the box immediately prior to wanting to use it so it had 5 mins on the radiator instead. ;-)

A little melted butter

Preheat oven to Gas 4.

Unroll filo and carefully seperate 2 sheets. The size of sheet can vary vastly - I was using 'Jus-Rol' chilled and the sheets are way smaller than their frozen version. [In fact about half size, near enough.] Anyway - cut into sections - 4 for this size sheet. Lay them at angles to each other - see pic. Place in case / cake or muffin tin hole - push down carefully. I reuse foil cases as well as using my silicone cases - one of the few useful things I've found to do with them frankly as they stick like gits with cakes. [The silicone ones, not the foil.]

Fill generously [though I may have been a little too generous as I only got 11 from the whole jar of mincemeat!] Brush a little melted butter on the edges of the pastry and draw closed, scrunching together.

Bake 10-15 mins until pastry edges are golden.
Cool on a wire rack - be aware that if you have accidentally torn the pastry the filling will ooze out at this point until it cools enough to 'glue' itself shut.

Take to pub and share with friends and feel all warm and festive and fuzzy. :-D

Use last cut bits of filo for a savoury mushroom, pesto and blue cheese mix as a treat for Chap for leaving me be in the kitchen even though we were running about an hour and a half late at that point!