Okay guys - here is the 15 minute, upside down fish pie…..
I gathered my ingredients and weighed them out.
View attachment 1717091
View attachment 1717174
(And yes, that is Maldon Sea Salt in a pinch pot - so what?? Do you want me to STOP EATING SALT??!!!)
The recipe states it serves 4 but my first impressions were that 300g of fish, which equated to 3 fish fillets didn’t seem like much between 4 people.
It also seemed like ALOT of celery!
Into the COLD pan we slop - with a pinch of salt and some cold oil…..
View attachment 1717097
The instructions tell me to fry the onion and celery (from cold, on my highest burner), for 3 mins, then add the frozen veg and fry for 2 mins more…
View attachment 1717109
Reader, they were all still raw by the end of the 5 mins, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Then, I added a crumbled stock cube, dried herbs (1tsp), 1 tbsp of flour, stirred it all in and added 300ml of skimmed UHT milk (
) gradually until it was all blended.
View attachment 1717115
And then add the fish and covered the pan with a lid - she says the fish should cook in 8 mins
View attachment 1717116
Near to the end of the fish cooking time, I put 300ml of skimmed UHT milk (
) in a jug, topped it up with 300ml boiling water, then added the potato flakes and 50g of soft spread..
View attachment 1717125
The next instruction was to microwave this solid paste for 1 minute, stir it and microwave it again for another 1 minute
So, this recipes states that the whole thing takes 15 minutes in one pan - a la a rip off of THAT MAN when his latest show came out (she posted it the night before he did his upside fish pie episode iirc??)
The total time for the recipe as written down by Jack is:
stir fry onions, celery then veg - 5 mins
add flour, milk etc & fish and cook for 8 mins
microwave instant potato for 2 mins
= 15 mins - MAGIC!
However, the potato was only slightly warm after 2 mins in the microwave so I had to put it in for another 2-3 mins, the veg were not cooked through and the fish took more like 10 mins to cook.
A cynical person might think that the times had been made up just to keep the recipe at 15 mins in total
Anyway, just before serving I stirred in the cheese to the sauce and served the mash in a bowl with the sauce on top.
View attachment 1717155
Verdict:
Taste - the mash was extremely bland and tasted of not much at all - I added a bit of the grated cheese to the top of mash to try to give it some flavour, but this did not help.
The fish part just tasted over poweringly of celery, which was still not cooked through properly and none of the flavours combined together.
There was also very little fish per serving - the dish is mainly a white sauce filled with onion, raw celery and other veg and a few bits of fish On top of bland potato.
Process - quite easy although the timings are all wrong. Also, she doesn’t tell you to grate the cheese, just to stir in the 80g cheese. Also, the mash was not cooked after the 2 mins instructed time in the microwave. It is not a 15 minute meal.
Cost - My total cost was £6.50 for the fish, skimmed milk(
), onions, frozen veg and instant mash - I had the cheese and stock cube in so they were free.
Score
3 - Middle Class (not terrible as I did manage to eat it, it just wasn’t very flavoursome and I worked out that one portion only has
344 calories so not very substantial for a main meal.
Reader I would not make this again.