Tip for a quick fish pie

No photograph today, we ate it up so fast! This is not really a recipe, more of a tip which you can adapt to your favourite fish pie recipe.

I've always found that the worst thing about making fish pie is all that washing up: you poach the fish, you make a sauce, you get out a pie dish .. this cuts out one process, and so cuts down on washing up and on the time it takes to make. I also think it improves the finished dish, because the fish isn't overdone by being twice-cooked.

General method: Make your sauce. Cut the raw fish into bite-sized pieces and lay them in your pie dish. Pour the hot sauce over, cover with your topping, and bake in a hot oven (Gas 6 or 7) for half an hour. In other words, don't bother to poach the fish first.

For my fish pie, this is what I did: I made plenty of bechamel sauce with oil, flour and skimmed milk. I poured this over a mixture of cod, defrosted prawns, and cooked mussels. I topped the pie with a sprinkling of breadcrumbs and anchovies (I stirred the contents of a tin of anchovies on a low heat until the fish just started to "melt", then stirred in some breadcrumbs).

Quick, delicious, creamy - no hint that this was "healthy". (It works just as well if you top the pie with mashed potato or pastry. The key thing is to cook the fish in a hot oven for half an hour.)