Irish Farmhouse Fish Pie Recipe

I was looking for recipe for an Irish Fish Pie over the weekend. I’ve made it before but cheated with the sauce. This time I wanted to create the dish from scratch, but I wanted a simple recipe. A recipe that my family would enjoy, and one we can rustle up whenever we take the notion.

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I was hard pressed to find a simple recipe with ‘none of your fancy stuff’, such as no wine, bay leaves or fish liquid. Fish Liquid – it just sounds wrong doesn’t it! Anyhoo, after researching, and scanning the internet for recipes, I found a simple yet delicious recipe on the Love Irish Food website.

Below you will find the Love Irish Food Irish Farmhouse Fish Pie recipe along with my step by step experience. Enjoy!

Please read the method through before you start your dish, and read my experience and ‘final verdict’ below the method for some personal cooking tips.

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Irish Farmhouse Fish Pie Recipe

Preparation time: 15min Cooking Time: 25min Serves: 4

Ingredients:

1. Cod or haddock – 700g/1Ib 9oz
2. 850ml/1.5pt milk
3. 1 small onion peeled
4. Butter – 60g or 2.25oz
5. Flour – 60g/2.25oz
6. Cheese – 60g or 2.25oz
7. 3 small ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped
8. 2 hard boiled eggs, shelled and chopped
9. 2 tbsp parsley, finely chopped
10. Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Potato Topping:

1. Potatoes, peeled weight – 700g/1Ib 9oz
2. Butter – 60g/2.25oz
3. Cream – 60 ml/4tbsp
4. Salt and freshly ground pepper

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Method:

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1. Make sure you remove all bones from the fish.

2. Place the fish, onion and milk together in a saucepan and bring to boil gently over a low heat.

3. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, then remove the saucepan from the heat and allow it to cool for a few minutes.

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4. Strain off the milk from the fish through a sieve and keep it for the sauce.

5. Flake the fish, removing any skin and bones that got away from you earlier.

6. Remove the onion.

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7. Now to make the creamy sauce.

8. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour.

9. Let it cook for 2-3 minutes.

10. Pour in the strained-off milk gradually, stirring well until the sauce starts to simmer.

11. Add the cheese and cook for one minute. Make sure to stir continuously until its melted.

12. Remove the saucepan from the heat. Then add the fish, chopped tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, parsley, the pinch of salt, and some freshly ground pepper. After that put the mixture into a pie dish.

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13. And as you’re doing the above steps. Boil or steam the potatoes (I prefer the later) until tender. The mash them well.

15. Mash in the butter and cream and season them with salt and pepper.

16. Cover the fish mixture with the mashed potatoes.

17. Bake in a preheated oven 180c/350f/gas mark 4 for 25 minutes until cooked through and browned.

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My Irish Farmhouse Fish Pie Recipe Experience:

• The ingredients are simple. Instead of cod or haddock, I decided to use three different fish. I used cod, smoked coley and salmon. You can get great fish at your local fishmongers if you’re lucky enough to have one. But if that’s not possible just check your local supermarket – most will have a good selection of fresh fish, and often have packs of premixed fish – ‘Seafood Mix’
• The cheese I used was Kilmeaden Cheese. I bought the mature cheddar as I prefer red cheddar but of course you can use whatever cheddar cheese you like – we change cheese brands like the breeze in our household!
• For the eggs, we buy free-range eggs which are delivered to our door each week – we’ve been doing it for years. But again use whatever eggs suit you.

• The cream and milk you use is entirely your own choice but I really like Glenisk cream. And milk-wise, we get glass bottles of Dunlavin Milk delivered to our door, and when that runs out we like to buy Avonmore milk. Using glass bottles was a satisfying step to take on our sustainable living goal. And importantly it’s great to support Irish farmers by purchasing Irish dairy products. Love Irish Food and all that!
• It’s the same with the tomatoes and potatoes – buying locally grown fruit and vegetables always feels better to me. And they taste better too. So I do this when I can.
• And on that note, tomatoes can be a pain to peel. I used the knife method but you could, if you want, cut a X in the top and boil them until the X splits. You then remove them and put them into a bowl of iced water to stop them cooking and the skin should come off easily. Or you could just use the knife method and basically just peel the skin off. Make sure your knife is sharp though. Other than that, there’s another method where you can basically cook the skin off over a flame. I’ll leave the later for a rainy day.

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Final Verdict:

Simple and delicious.

• I feel the estimated preparation time of 15 minutes isn’t realistic. Either that or I must daydream each time I cook this dish, because it takes me much longer. And so I would recommend you factor in at least 30 minutes.
• Start your dish by steaming your potatoes, that way they’re ready to go as soon as you have your sauce made.
• The method to make the cheese sauce states that you stir in the flour to the melted butter and then add the milk. Personally I don’t think you’ll get a smooth and creamy sauce if you do this. This is what I do: I remove the butter from the heat once melted and with a small hand whisk, I whisk in the flour, return to the heat for a minute constantly stirring, remove from the heat and gradually add the milk as I stir with my whisk – then I return to the heat. The cheese sauce is basically a white sauce / béchamel sauce with cheese. The method I’ve mentioned always gives me a creamy lump free sauce.
• I used a large dish for this version of my Irish Fish Pie but I usually use a deep set oven proof dish (le creuset) … and of course you can go fancy and pipe your potato onto the fish pie which will create a pretty effect but it’s also nice to ‘keep it country’.

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For more simple recipes visit our recipes page

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PIN: Love Irish Food – Irish Farmhouse Fish Pie Recipe

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*this Irish Fish Pie recipe was originally published on The Life of Stuff on August 20th 2013 but has since been updated

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