Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill Signature Fish Pie

Richard Corrigan

Richard Corrigan

8th February 2018
Richard Corrigan

Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill Signature Fish Pie

If only a home cooked pie will do for British Pie Week (5th- 11th March 2018), Richard Corrigan’s Fish Pie Recipe from Bentley's Oyster Bar & Grill is failsafe.

Ingredients

  • 1kg fish fillets, including salmon, smoked haddock and white fish such as pollock and haddock (the smoked haddock trimmings will be used in the sauce)
  • 1.5kg floury potatoes
  • 2 egg yolks
  • For the sauce:
  • 100g butter, plus a little extra for sweating the vegetables
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed
  • a sprig of thyme
  • 150ml wine glass of white wine
  • smoked haddock trimmings (see above)
  • 2 pints milk
  • 100g plain flour
  • 1 tablespoon English mustard
  • a hand full of chives and parsley chopped
  • To finish:
  • a little lemon juice
  • a handful of fresh breadcrumbs
  • a little grated Parmesan

Method

1. Remove the skin from the fish and cut into bite-sized pieces, reserving the skin of the smoked haddock for the sauce.
2. To start the sauce, heat a little butter in a saucepan, add the onion, garlic thyme and sweat until softened.
3. Add the white wine and the smoked haddock trimmings and cook for a few minutes to burn off the alcohol.
4. Add the milk and bring to just under the boil, then take the pan from the heat, pass the contents through a sieve into a bowl and keep hot.
5. Melt the 100g butter in a heavy saucepan, add the flour and cook over a low heat, stirring well, for 5 minutes.
6. Pour the hot infused milk into the pan and whisk vigorously until the mixture is smooth and thick. Taste to make sure you can’t taste the flour. If you can, let it cook gently for a little longer.
7. Whisk in the mustard and add the chives and parsley. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper and more mustard if you wish.
8. Leave to cool down while you make the mash — it is best not to assemble the pie with hot sauce as it will cook the fish too quickly.
9. Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4.
10. Peel the potatoes and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain in a colander and allow the potatoes to steam for a couple of minutes to rid them of excess moisture, then mash and season with salt and pepper. Add the egg yolks.
11. Scoop the mash into a piping bag — it needs to be hot in order to pipe easily. (IF you prefer not to pipe it, spoon it on carefully, then plough lines across it with the prongs of a fork.)
12. To assemble, spoon a little of the sauce into the bottom of each of 4 pie dishes. Arrange a selection of fish on top of the sauce. Season with salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon juice and a few drops of green Tabasco — the colour looks great.
13. Completely cover with sauce, then pipe or spoon on the mash. Mix together the breadcrumbs and Parmesan and sprinkle evenly over the pies.
14. Place the pie dishes on a baking sheet and cook for around 20 minutes until the top is golden brown and the centre of each pie is good and hot — push a skewer into the centre and it should come out hot to the touch. Serve immediately.

In these challenging times…

The Staff Canteen team are taking a different approach to keeping our website independent and delivering content free from commercial influence. Our Editorial team have a critical role to play in informing and supporting our audience in a balanced way. We would never put up a paywall  – The Staff Canteen is open to all and we want to keep bringing you the content you want; more from younger chefs, more on mental health, more tips and industry knowledge, more recipes and more videos. We need your support right now, more than ever, to keep The Staff Canteen active. Without your financial contributions this would not be possible.

Over the last 16 years, The Staff Canteen has built what has become the go-to platform for chefs and hospitality professionals. As members and visitors, your daily support has made The Staff Canteen what it is today. Our features and videos from the world’s biggest name chefs are something we are proud of. We have over 560,000 followers across Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube and other social channels, each connecting with chefs across the world. Our editorial and social media team are creating and delivering engaging content every day, to support you and the whole sector - we want to do more for you.

A single coffee is more than £2, a beer is £4.50 and a large glass of wine can be £6 or more.

Support The Staff Canteen from as little as £1 today. Thank you.