Stargazy Pie
A delicious and easy fish pie topped with crisp, shortcrust pastry and the addition of little sardines heads poking out! Recipe originally heralds from Mousehole in Cornwall.
Equipment
- 1 large pan
- 1 Chopping board
- 1 Chef's knife
- 1 dinner knife
- 1 Measuring spoons
- 1 Measuring Jug
- 1 Weighing scales
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 deep pie dish 23cm wide approx
- 1 Small bowl for glaze
- 1 Pastry brush
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp salted butter
- 1 onion
- 200 g smoked bacon lardons
- 3 tbsp plain flour
- 300 ml fish stock
- 150 ml double cream
- 300 g fish pie mix haddock, white fish, salmon...
- 1 tsp fresh flat leaf parsley chopped
- 1 tsp fresh chives chopped
- 3 boiled eggs
- 4 whole sardines
- 320 g ready-rolled shortcrust pastry
- 1 egg
- 50 ml milk semi or whole is fine
Instructions
- Melt a chunk of butter in a saucepan and fry off your onions and bacon lardons until crisp and softened.
- Add the flour to make roux, stirring for a minute. Pour in your fish stock and bring to a boil. You may notice the sauce starting to thicken already. Stir for a few minutes more until properly thickened and then pour in your cream. Do the same again until you have a thick sauce.
- Stir in the chopped fish, the parsley and chives. Fold in the chopped boiled eggs. I only halves mine but you can do quarters, whatever suits you.
- Roll out your pastry until 3mm thick and wider than your pie dish.
- Pour the fish pie sauce into your dish. Place the sardines standing up in the pie dish. If they are too long, like mine were, you can also just lean them on the sides. I did one in each corner of the dish.
- Cut four slits in your pastry in approximately the areas where your sardines are. Pick up your pastry carefully and lay it over your dish, pulling through the sardines heads one by one. Carefully press the sides of the pastry onto the pie dish to seal it and trim off the long edges.
- Make a glaze with an egg and your milk, whisking them together and brush all over the pastry with your pastry brush. This will help give the pie a nice, brown colour. Bake in a hot oven, around 220 degrees C for 20 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Serve with the vegetables of your choosing (we went for peas!) and enjoy!
Notes
Storage - this pie will keep in the fridge in a sealed container for a day.
Reheat - you can reheat the pie in the microwave on high for 2 minutes until steaming hot.
Freeze - you can freeze leftover pie mix in a sealed container and defrost well before reheating (see above).