My patent fish pie recipe.

I love fish pie, especially one ladened with a rich cheesy sauce. However, as we all know, when you are managing weight loss, or maintaining a weight loss, things like cheese will always be restricted.

I have tried various fish pie recipes and most have been less than satisfying but today I managed to break the duck and have my sauce recipe and pie mix spot on for me.

The mash potato was my standard combo of smooth mashed potato mixed with 0% Creme Fraiche (Quark will do if you cannot get the Creme fraiche).

I used smoke haddock, plain cod and prawns for my fish mix and these were poached in milk but then drained thoroughly after it was all cooked.

This milk was used to make the cheese sauce for the family’s pie which was made the traditional way with hot melted butter and flour cooked in a pan, with milk added to make the base sauce (plus a splash of mustard powder) and then grated cheddar added.

My sauce was something else. I sprayed a good quantity of butter spray oil into a pan and then added a small amount of wholemeal flour. This was cooked a little and then loosened up with veg stock (I would have used fish stock but had run out). Stock was slowly added until a creamy sauce had been made. I now added the twist with a pile of chopped jalapeño peppers to the sauce. If I had capers I might have used these instead or as well. I have to account for a little naughtiness in the use of flour and probably for the quantities of spray oil, but not much.

The sauce was poured over my fish mix in the dish and then my new go to treat was added. This was in the form of a chopped pickled egg sprinkled over the top of the mix and then covered in mash.

My apologies for the veg mix with it. I was using up two bags of frozen veg to make space in the freezer.

The final product was, for my tastebuds, spot on. Give the Jalapeño and eggs a try to see if it works for you but you can always use a regular hard boiled egg with parsley in the sauce, capers or any other veg of your choice.

For me, this is now my go to fish pie recipe. For the first time I did not feel I had missed out because I did not have the cheese sauce.