I wanted to have a traditional British fish pie for New Year’s Eve dinner so I used ½ fresh salmon and ½ smoked salmon with snow crab meat for a pie. I actually modified Jamie Oliver’s fish pie recipe which used half smoked haddock and half fresh salmon for a “smokier” dish than all fresh fish.
The salmon I got were nice fillets meant for pan-frying that costs RM 79.90 per kg. There was another batch of salmon steaks going for half the price but I didn’t like the look of the sad pieces of fish lying about so I paid premium for the fresher salmon.
You will need:
- 300 grams salmon fillets
- 150 grams smoked salmon
- 250 grams snow crab claw legs
- 4 sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley
- 3 bunches of spinach
- 3-4 Brussels sprouts
- 800 grams of red potatoes
- 200 grams freshly grated Cheddar cheese
- 1 lemon
I bought a packet of parsley and you can see the difference between flat-leaf and curly-leaf parsley. There are equal amounts of each in the pack, I just used the flat-leaf ones, also known as Italian parsley.
I chopped up all the vegetables into small pieces and lined the bottom of the baking trays with it before adding the grated Cheddar cheese on top. I used two, and that was a mistake, you can’t split a recipe in half like that, will show you why later.
Meanwhile, I peeled the Red Pontiac potatoes for chopping into 2 cm chunks. Red potatoes are perfect for baking but due to it’s starch content, is not so suitable for frying. These aren’t the potatoes for French fries, but it’s good as mash.
The red potatoes are then dumped into a pot of salted water and boiled for 15 minutes until soft.
I started on the fresh salmon fillet after that – you need to skin it since the recipe calls for the fish to be skinned so the easiest way is to de-skin it is to run a sharp knife under it.
I chopped up the fresh salmon fillet into bite sized pieces and did the same for the smoked salmon and snow crab claw legs…
…before dumping everything into the baking trays.
You just need to give it a good dousing of extra virgin olive oil and add some salt and black pepper before mixing *everything* thoroughly.
The red potatoes are mashed and then put on top of the fish pie as a topping. This is where I went wrong coz I used two baking trays and the potatoes were barely enough to cover both!
I actually needed a deeper baking tray which would provide the same surface area for the potatoes but I really had to stretch the potatoes to cover both trays.
I put both of the fish pies into the oven for 40 minutes and they came out perfect!
The kids both tried it but declared it to be too salty as I had forgotten smoked salmon is already seasoned and added too much salt to the recipe.
My better half also thought the same, and I had a huge thirst after eating all that due to the sodium.
I think I’ll use cod next time instead of salmon, and hold back on the liberal handfuls pinches of salt. 
Nevertheless, it was a great New Year’s Eve dinner together with the family. 🙂
