Vegan Fish Pie

It seems, like once, again the intolerable British summer is upon us (oh how we love it hate it!). *Why we act surprised about it when it’s something that happens every year I will never know…*

It also seems like it has been forever since I’ve posted on a recipe here. Fifth year has been hectic. I’ve barely had time to cook for myself let alone plunge into the good ol’ process of recipe testing, food styling, editing and narrating my entirely culinary process (often plagued with me getting upset at myself for eating too much while cooking to have something large enough to photograph).

But I digress.

I return to you with some great news and a truly rapturous dish. Yes, I am talking about this vegan fish pie. But before we get knee-deep in pie chat, let’s talk sauces.

I am a big fan of Sacla. Pre-vegan days (i.e. before the dawn of time) (read: 8 years ago), sacla was my best pal whenever a pesto pasta craving striked. And even after I took the pulge – they had a free-from version. I was, needless to say, a girl enchanted.

Sacla reached out to me to try out their two new vegan (and GF!) sauces, a bolognese sauce and a white sauce, and to give them a little whirl. As a girl who has eaten many a spag bol in her lifetime, I decided to try creating a superstar recipe with their white sauce.

Sacla recommend using it in place of white sauce in any regular recipe you may be trying to convert, or to slather it in between you lasagne layers, or to stir it into a vegan mac and cheese. All brilliant methods you could deploy whenever you’ve come home after a long day and need a quick easy peasy dinner-time number. But I decided to go the pie-way…

P.S. If you are as thrilled about these new sauces as I am, I am currently running a competition where you can snag yourself a couple of jars or each sauce to do your own kitchen wizardry with. Hop on over here to enter.

Now pie time – fish pie is a well-loved British dish – made with an assortment of white fish, and usually one of the smoked variety. For our vegan fish pie, I have used banana blossoms and some shredded shiitakes for a mix of flakey, fishy texture and some umami from the mushrooms. A pinch of smoked paprika gives that lovely smokey undertone that a smoked haddock would usually supply. 

I’ve used a combination of lemon juice and kelp flakes here to give the filling that briny, seaside whiff. Although any seaweed should work similarly. Wakame, if you have it, should be ground coarsely in a spice grinder and used in equal quantities. Failing that, you can simply shred up a sheet of sushi nori as fine as you can, and slide that into the bubbling, creamy goo in your saucepan.

Once topped with the soothing velvet mash, you can go one of two ways. You can leave it as is, but for a less rustic look, I like to adorn the pie with a lot of crimping and dimpling. The edges of the mash can crisp up in the oven to give you a mottled golden crust. A thing of beauty!

This is perfect recipe to deploy in the colder, gauzy months (so perhaps not the weather we have been having off late – but I could not resist). Throw supper party to celebrate the shortening days, and cut into this pie with a large spoon – hoping for an audible definitive crunch. The first bite will lead to another. And another. And another….

Here, is a pie that will make you friends.