Catrina Manning
Catrina Manning, Year 11, Future Chef Winner 2018. Passionate about cooking, Catrin loves to develop tasty, healthy recipes full of veg and fruit, and to encourage young children to try new things.
Catrina’s Veg-Packed Fish Pie
Catrina Manning
Effort:
Complexity:
Cost:
Serves: 6
Prep time: 30 mins
Cook time: 1 hour
Ingredients:
For the pie filling:
220g salmon fillet
240g cod or white fish fillet
250g smoked haddock
1 medium red pepper, roughly diced
1 medium yellow pepper, roughly diced
1 leek (approx 200g), thinly sliced
200g broccoli, roughly chopped
1 medium carrot, diced
3 shallots or 1 white onion, finely sliced
butter, for frying
vegetable oil, for frying
2 garlic cloves, crushed
For the white sauce:
45g butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
300ml whole or semi-skimmed milk
For the mash topping:
700g baking potatoes
25g butter
100g mature cheddar cheese, grated
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon chopped chives, to serve
Veg Portions / Serving: 1
Recipe donated by Future Chef for Veg Power. Recipe and food photography by Catrina Manning. Portrait photography by Jane Henderson | janehendersonphotography.co.uk
This veg-packed fish pie is a really simple recipe but is full of flavour. It is easy to make, and children will love to help out. It is full of nutrition and includes many vegetables in a variety of colours. Children will love to help chop up the vegetables or mash the potatoes, helping to introduce them to quick, easy and healthy cooking.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Chop the salmon, cod and haddock into chunks and season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Dice the peppers and carrots, slice the shallot, leek and roughly chop the broccoli. Put each into bowls.
Fry the shallots in butter and 1 tbsp vegetable oil , add the crushed garlic and fry until the shallots are soft. Add the fish and fry for a further 2-3 minutes. Add the peppers and carrots and cook for 5-7 minutes, until the peppers begin to soften.
Meanwhile, to make the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan then add the flour. Mix until it forms a roux by cooking and whisking for a minute until thick. Slowly add the milk, whisking constantly, to ensure there are no lumps. Season with salt and black pepper.
Add the leek, broccoli, and white sauce to the fish and mix it through. Simmer for 10-12 minutes until the vegetables are soft.
Peel and chop the potatoes, and put into a pan of water. Add salt and bring to the boil. Boil for approx. 10 minutes until tender. Drain the potatoes into a colander, then tip them back into the saucepan. Add the butter and milk, and mash. Add the cheese and parsley, and mix with a spatula, ensuring the cheese has melted.
Pour the fish pie mixture into a large dish, and spread the potatoes evenly over the top. Use a fork to create a pattern over the top, and to help crisp up the potato. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the potatoes are golden brown. Scatter the chives over the top and serve whilst still hot.
Tip: Replace the baking potatoes with sweet potato, to give this pie and extra burst of flavour and a delicious golden orange top.
Engaging Kids
Kids who engage regularly with veg through veg-themed activities, such as arts and crafts, sensory experiences, growing and cooking are shown to be more likely to eat the veg they engage with. Encouraging kids to engage and play with veg is the handy first step to them developing a good relationship with veg and life-long healthy eating.
Kids in the kitchen
There are plenty of ways to involve children in making this pie. Learning to make a white sauce is a great skill, and useful for so many recipes, so get them to help measure and weigh the ingredients and help out at the hob. They can also help by grating the cheese, cutting the parsley with scissors and mashing potatoes.
Activities
While getting kids to interact with veggies for real and using their senses to explore them is best, encouraging hands off activities like arts & crafts, puzzles & games or at-home science experiments can be a great start, particularly for those who are fussier eaters or struggle with anything too sensory. Use these veg-themed activities as a stepping stone to interacting with the veg themselves. We have loads of crafty downloads here, puzzles here, and quirky science with veg here.
Sensory
Once you feel your child is ready to engage a little more, you can show them how to explore the veg you have on hand with their senses, coming up with playful silly descriptions of how a veg smells, feels, looks, sounds and perhaps even tastes. Find ideas, videos and some simple sensory education session ideas to get you started here.
Serving
The moments before food is offered can be a perfect opportunity for engagement that can help make it more likely a child will eat it! Giving children a sense of ownership in the meal can make a big difference to their feelings going into it and the pride they take in it. You know your child best, but if you aren’t sure where to start, we have some fun and simple ideas for easy roles you can give them in the serving process over here.
Similar recipes
