Mariners Pie

Serves 1

Syns per portion*: Extra Easy 1, Red 1 (potatoes as heathy extras), Green 1 (fish as healthy extras)
*Syn milk if not using as part of healthy extra


Ingredients

• 1 fillet of white fish (cod haddock etc.)
• 200ml semi-skimmed milk
• 1 level tsp arrowroot powder (1 syn)
• 2 tblspn garden peas
• 2 tbspn sweetcorn
• 200g white potatoes
• 1 tbspn chopped parsley, fresh or dried
• salt and pepper

Method

1.  Peel the potatoes, quarter and place onto boils for 20 min. Heat the oven to 180c.
2. Meanwhile place 150ml of milk in a pan, once it reaches a boil set heat until milk simmers. Add the fish fillet and  poach for 5 min until cooked.
3. Remove fish from pan, leaving milk remaining. Flake the fish.
4. Add the arrowroot to the milk and stir.
5. Add the flaked fish, peas, sweetcorn and parsley to the milk. Leave to reduce to desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
6. Place the fish sauce into a miniature casserole dish and set aside to cool.
7. Once potatoes are ready, drain and return to pan. Add the remaining 50ml of milk and mash to desired consistency.
8. Layer the mashed potatoes on top of fish sauce in casserole dish.
9. Place in oven for 10-15min or until the top turns slightly brown. Serve.

During my first stint of following the slimming world plan I tried experimenting with alternatives to white sauce which didn't consist of a roux or cornflour as both are quite high in syns. One of my 'experiments' was using quark as an alternative.  Whilst this was delicious for dishes such as lasagna, it did not work so well for my first attempt at a slimming world fish pie. I ended up with a curdled mess which tasted disgusting. So I recently found out about a sauce thickener called arrowroot. To my surprise it's a lot lower in syns than cornflour (1 level tsp = 1syn) and doesn't have the same aftertaste or cloudy affect that cornflour does. So again I attempted to make my fish pie, and much to my delight it was a success. I'm not a big lover of fish but I do like to be try a fish dish every now and then, so please let me know if you make it and what you think.

Here are a few notes I made about this recipe:

• You can vary the types of fish you use within the recipe and make it a bit more luxury by adding salmon or prawns.
• This would also be lovely with some cheese added to the top but remember to count as a HeA or syn it.
• If you replace the white fish with salmon you can vary the flavour by replacing the parsley with dill.