Sunday's fish pie

Matt, my husband, had declined my offer of roast dinner. Wisely because roast dinner would probably have consisted of bean burgers, roast potatoes, peas and gravy. So I would have to be a bit more imaginative. Whilst ferreting in the freezer earlier in the week I had noticed a disproportionate amount of smoked fish. I tend to buy this (and other fish) when it's reduced and then freeze it for use when we fancy it. One of the things I like to make is fish pie, but in the absence of any plain white fish and only a massive side of salmon (which I should have chopped up before freezing but is now going to have to be deployed when we have lots of people round sometime) this wasn't an option in the traditional sense. What I envisaged instead was something with the smoked fish (2 of the 4 fillets) and tomato. There was also half a tin of sweetcorn, half a punnet of mushrooms and some spring onions that needed using up. I wouldn't normally buy spring onions but they were on offer so were effectively free with the celery (not deployed in this creation) that I had brought. So I decided to add the mushrooms and sweetcorn to the tomato / fish mix and to make some sort of fancy mashed potato to go on top of it all.

This had the potential to use a lot of pans, something that I generally strive to avoid. So I spent a few minutes working out how to reduce my pan usage. I got it down to a wok, a saucepan and an oven-proof dish. Unfortunately I had used my multifunction hob / oven dish for the previous day's curry and hadn't yet washed it up, otherwise this would have reduced my pan usage by a third.

Strategically, I started off cooking the chopped spring onions in the wok while the fish defrosted in the microwave. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of smoked fish aroma emanating from the microwave every time we used it for a number of days subsequently. I am yet to discover the way around this – apart from of course to be more organised and get the fish out the freezer earlier so that it can defrost naturally. I was reminded of one of the reasons why I don't buy spring onions very often – they were so full of mud and required a disproportionate amount of washing for their small volume.

Spring onions to one side – they would go in the mash. I replaced them in the wok with the mushrooms and once these were cooked down (and I never cease to be amazed just how much they do cook down) I added a tin of plum tomatoes which I chopped a little bit with my wooden spoon. While that heated up a bit I prepared the fish. This mainly involved deskinning it, which is relatively easy as long as you have some good soap for afterwards so that you're not afraid to tackle to quite assertively.

The fish went into the mushroom / tomato mix and I put the potatoes on to boil. I am of the opinion that lots of the goodness in a potato is in its skin. Therefore unless you are an exceptionally honoured guest or the potatoes have particularly grotty skins you will find that my mash has the added texture and flavour of the skins which I leave in. In posh restaurants I think they call this crushed potatoes, really it is just slack mash. I stirred the sweetcorn into the mushroom / tomato / fish mix and then had to wait for a while until the fish was cooked and the potatoes were ready for mashing. Rather than twiddling my thumbs I grated some strong cheddar that I decided would augment the mash rather nicely.

I finished off the mushroom / tomato / fish / sweetcorn mix with a tablespoon of crème fraiche (it seemed like a good idea) and lots of black pepper and transferred this to my oven-proof dish. I mashed up the potatoes with the spring onions and cheese (this smelt amazing in itself and I would have been quite happy just to eat this for my meal) and then carefully applied this on top of the mushroom / tomato / fish / sweetcorn mix. There was a little bit of mash left over but I didn't mind – I would look forward to eating it as reheat.

The whole thing went into a hottish oven (the standard 180°C for when you don't really know what temperature you should really be using) for about 20 minutes and I cooked a little bit of broccoli (one of my favourite vegetables but not one of my favourite spellings) to go with it. The smell coming from the oven was (even if I say so myself) amazing – that wonderful combination of smoked fish and cheese I think. And when it came to eating the smell lived up to the expectations that it had created - a delicious alternative to a slack roast dinner. This is definitely one that's going to be recreated, hopefully with fewer pans next time.