Britain’s Coziest Pie

The way Brits describe their fish pie is a lot like the way Texans talk about brisket or New Yorkers explain a properly chewy bagel—which is to say, with great conviction and affection. The Guardian columnist Felicity Cloake has compared the beloved casserole to a cozy pair of slippers or a Sunday-afternoon film with a mug of tea, and Manchester-based journalist Tony Naylor dubbed it “elbows-on-the‑table, fork‑in-one-hand, glass-in-the-other eating.” “Fish pie,” he wrote in his own Guardian account, “should be a dish of seamless comfort-troffing.”

Unequivocally snug, substantive fare that likely evolved as a Lenten dish made with seafood scraps (see “From Meatless Fridays to Fish Pie”), the dish is the surf equivalent of shepherd’s or cottage pie. It’s typically a mixture of fresh and smoked finfish such as cod, haddock, and salmon and shellfish such as shrimp, which is all napped with a creamy, roux-based sauce flavored with stock, wine, and aromatics; sealed with a lid of mashed potatoes; and baked or broiled until the crust is craggy and lightly bronzed. The result is as comforting as it is luxurious, ideal cold-weather fare for family or company. 

For my own recipe, I opted to use cod fillets (widely available both fresh and frozen) as well as smoked salmon in place of the smoked haddock that is traditionally used in the UK but rarely available stateside. Four ounces of cold-smoked fillets added vivid color and rich flavor to the stew, and I preferred their silkier texture to the drier, flakier fillets of hot-smoked salmon (though the latter made a perfectly acceptable substitute). Jumbo shrimp added briny sweetness and snappy bite, especially after I tossed them with salt and a bit of baking soda before cooking. Even though the shrimp are cooked a bit longer than usual in this dish, they stayed moist and springy since baking soda raises the shrimp’s pH and helps them retain moisture.

Sautéed aromatics (leek instead of onion for its milder allium flavor plus fresh thyme) were the flavor base for my creamy sauce, which I thickened to a chowder-like consistency by whisking in flour and bottled clam juice. The latter delivered the clean, briny flavor of the sea without the extra effort of making a seafood stock. Then came the dairy: Heavy cream got the nod over milk for the lush richness it added. 

There are two common routes for cooking the seafood: combining it raw with the sauce in a gratin dish, topping it with mashed potatoes, and then baking the assembly until the fish is cooked through, or parcooking it in the sauce on the stove before smoothing the potatoes over the filling and broiling the pie to color and crisp the topping. I preferred the latter because it was much faster, and it also allowed for close monitoring of the seafood as it simmered, ensuring moist, tender results every time. But regardless of the method, there was potential for the sauce to break, since the exuded seafood jus and cream don’t readily mix. 

The solution was to frequently stir the seafood and sauce while they gently bubbled together on the stovetop to ensure that juices given off by the seafood were fully incorporated. 

To finish up, I adapted our Shepherd’s Pie potato topping for this pie, swapping cream for the milk (as I was already using cream in the filling) and eliminating the scallions. I kept the egg yolk to help the russets soufflé. Its protein and fat—along with a drizzle of butter—also encouraged browning on top of this seafood pie that I hope will earn plenty of fans on this side of the pond.