The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well With Leftovers (30 page)

Serves 2

2 teaspoons butter, plus a little extra for baking

2 teaspoons plain flour

200ml milk

2 good teacups (about 250g) leftover white fish

100g frozen (cooked) prawns or shrimps, thawed

100g frozen peas

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

2 hard-boiled eggs, sliced (optional
)

300g floury potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed with a knob of butter, or 2 teacups leftover mash

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Make a white sauce with the butter, flour and milk (see
page 32
). Flake the fish, checking for skin and bones, and put it in a small ovenproof dish. Add the prawns or shrimps, peas and parsley and combine with a good stir, then pour over the white sauce. If you are using hard-boiled eggs, layer the slices over the lot. Top with the mashed potato. Dot with a little butter and bake for 25-35 minutes, until bubbling and turning golden on top.

Smoked fish
This will deepen the taste of the pie, so if you can pick up a small fillet of smoked haddock on the way home to add to leftover fish, do. Simply poach it (along with fresh white fish if you don’t have leftovers) in milk with a knob of butter, allow to cool, then flake the flesh away from the skin, adding it to the rest of the fish. Keep the poaching milk to make the white sauce, giving it a much richer, fishier taste.

An enriched white sauce
Replace some of the milk with single cream or crème fraîche, if you have some lying around and screaming to be used up.

A different topping
Use very finely sliced raw potato instead of mash (see
page 97
). Or you can jazz up the mashed potato by forking through it some finely sliced leeks that have been softened in a little butter.

No-potato fish bake with fennel and capers
To make a decidedly non-traditional alternative to fish pie, break the fish into large chunks in a buttered pie dish, then scatter over some sliced fennel that has been cooked in a little olive oil in a frying pan until tender and just browned. Add about a dessertspoon of well-rinsed capers and a big handful of coarsely chopped parsley, then squeeze over the juice of ½ lemon or add a drizzle of white wine. Cover with foil and bake in the oven at 180°C/ Gas Mark 4 for 15-20 minutes, until thoroughly heated through. To my taste, mashed potato doesn’t sit well with the lemony capers, but a handful of breadcrumbs, mixed with a handful of grated Parmesan and toasted pine nuts and scattered over the top before baking, would provide a welcome crunch while helping to prevent the fish drying out.

No-potato fish bake with spinach
Wilt a couple of large handfuls of well-washed spinach in a large pan – you need only the water that is clinging to its leaves for cooking. Once wilted, squeeze well and drape the leaves over and around large pieces of cooked white fish or salmon in a buttered baking dish. Make the white sauce as for Fish Pie, finishing off with a good handful of grated Parmesan and a grating of nutmeg – its strong flavour goes particularly well with spinach. Pour this over the dish and bake in the oven at 180°C/Gas Mark 4 for 15-20 minutes, or until just turning brown on top. Serve with some crusty bread or boiled potatoes.

No-potato fish bake with saffron, pine nuts and raisins
Break the fish into large chunks and put it in a buttered dish with some chopped fresh tomatoes, a finely sliced and browned onion, a handful or so of toasted pine nuts and another of raisins. Steep a couple of strands of good saffron in ½ eggcup of hot water, then pour it over the dish. Cover with foil and bake in the oven at 180°C/Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes.

This works well with any leftover meat and, as with the Fish Pie on
pages 91
-
2
, you can add whatever vegetables need using up: sweated, sliced leeks, celery or carrot, broccoli or cauliflower florets, French beans or even finely sliced red or orange peppers. Adapt the basic recipe below as you like and, if in any doubt, use the What Goes with What list on
pages 26
-
7
.

Serves 2

200ml milk

2 teacups mushrooms, sliced

2 good teacups (about 250g) leftover cooked chicken, cut into pieces

a good handful of chopped parsley

oil for frying

1 onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, crushed

2 teaspoons butter, plus a little extra for baking

2 teaspoons plain flour

a grating of nutmeg (optional
)

300g floury potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed with a little butter, or 2 teacups leftover mash

salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas Mark 4. Bring the milk to simmering point in a pan, add the mushrooms and poach for 3-4 minutes, until tender. Drain, keeping the milk to one side. Put the mushrooms and chicken in a small ovenproof dish and scatter the parsley over it.

Heat a little oil in a small pan, add the onion and garlic and cook gently until softened. Add to the dish containing the chicken, forking all the ingredients together.

Make a white sauce (see
page 32
) using the milk from the mushrooms and the butter and flour. Season with salt, pepper and a grating of nutmeg, if liked. Pour this over the chicken and mushroom mixture and stir to combine everything roughly. Spoon the mashed potato evenly on top, smoothing it down with a fork. Dot with a little butter and bake for 25-35 minutes, until bubbling and golden on top.

Mushroom sauce
For a quick fix, replace the mushrooms and white sauce with half a can of mushroom soup (not the concentrated variety) or a small tub of bought mushroom sauce.

Tarragon
Substituting tarragon for parsley will give a stronger, aromatic edge to the dish.

Using stock
Omit the white sauce and simply spoon some home-made stock (see
pages 27
-
30
) over the meat and mushrooms before topping with mash.

Replace the mash
Use very finely sliced raw potato for a Dauphinoise-style crust (see
page 97
).