Rick Stein's fish pie

This seafood pie is rich, velvety, and packed with flavour. With tender pieces of fish, prawns, scallops, and mussels nestled in a silky velouté sauce scented with nutmeg, bay, and clove, it’s comfort food elevated to something truly special.

• serves

  6

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  45 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Series. Cooking. Rated PG.

Stream free On Demand

Rick Stein's Australia

series • CookingPG

Ingredients

• 200 g finely chopped onion
• 60 g butter
• 30 g parmesan cheese, grated
• 50 ml thickened (double) cream
• Juice of ½ lemon
• Salt, to taste
• 500 g skinless fish fillet (see Note; Rick used salmon and blue eye trevalla)
• 50 g plain flour, to dust seafood
• 30 ml vegetable oil
• 10 g butter
• 8 green prawns, peeled, deveined, halved
• 6 scallops, roe removed, halved
• 6 cooked mussels
• 100 g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 tsp truffle oil
• Green salad & minted peas, optional to serve
• Warmed crusty bread and salted butter, optional, to serve

For the crust

• 150 g Japanese panko breadcrumbs or fresh breadcrumbs dried out for 10 minutes in a hot oven
• 80 g melted butter

For the velouté

• 50 g butter
• 50 g plain flour
• 300 ml milk
• 600 ml fish stock
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 crushed clove
• 1 pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Instructions

1. To make the velouté: Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook for about 2 minutes without colouring, stirring constantly. When it starts to smell nutty, add a third of the milk and stock, and keep stirring until it thickens and is completely smooth. Add another third and stir as before, then add the final third and when smooth, add the bay leaves, clove and nutmeg. Leave to simmer gently for about half an hour or until thickened.
2. To make the pie: Preheat the oven to 180C (160’C fan). Slow-cook the onion in the butter in a frypan for 10 minutes.
3. Pour the velouté through a sieve into the sauteed onions and add the parmesan cheese, cream and lemon juice, adding a little salt if necessary.
4. Cut the fish fillet into bite-size pieces, 3-4 cm long. Season with a little salt and turn over in the flour. Fry for 2-3 minutes in a frying pan over medium heat using the vegetable oil and butter. Add remaining seafood and toss to coat. Remove from heat.
5. Transfer the seafood to an approx. 1.5 litre rectangular pie dish (26 cm x 20 cm).
6. Fry the mushrooms in the same pan adding a little salt; stir in the mustard and add to the pie dish. Drizzle the truffle oil over.
7. Pour the velouté sauce and onion mixture over the fish. Mix the breadcrumbs with the melted butterand spread over the top.
8. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until crumbs are golden.

Note

You will need about 800 g fresh seafood for this pie. It can be a mixture of fish fillets and crustaceans.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.