Salted pollock with potatoes, cream and marjoram

Name: Salted pollock with potatoes, cream and marjoram
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 1 h 10 min
Total time: 1 h 55 min
Yield: Serves 6
Cuisine: British recipes
Ingredients: 1kg white floury potatoes, such as desiree or Maris Piper; 1 large onion, thinly sliced; 4-6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced; 2 tbsp chopped fresh marjoram, plus marjoram flower stems to decorate; 500ml double cream; 300-400g thoroughly soaked salted pollock or cod fillets, skinned and sliced into small pieces; You’ll also need…; 1.5 litre round baking dish, 20-25cm in diameter and 5cm deep

Portion size: Serves 6
Hands-on time 45 min, oven time 60-70 min, plus 30 min resting
Difficulty: easy

Recipe by: Gill Meller

Save

Gill Meller’s fish pie recipe is simple done right. He combines salted pollock, potatoes and marjoram with just a few ingredients to make this comforting classic.

Next time: try delicious almond-crusted pollock with tahini potatoes

Join Extradelicious to unlock Cook Mode

Ingredients

1kg white floury potatoes, such as desiree or Maris Piper
1 large onion, thinly sliced
4-6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 tbsp chopped fresh marjoram, plus marjoram flower stems to decorate
500ml double cream
300-400g thoroughly soaked salted pollock or cod fillets, skinned and sliced into small pieces

You’ll also need…

1.5 litre round baking dish, 20-25cm in diameter and 5cm deep

Join Extradelicious to unlock Cook Mode

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4. Peel, then slice the potatoes thinly into 2-3mm rounds. Put the slices in a large heatproof bowl along with the onion, garlic and chopped marjoram, then season with plenty of black pepper (the fish will bring salt into the mix). Put the cream in a small pan over a medium heat and bring it up to a simmer. Pour the hot cream over the potatoes, then turn the slices to combine.
Arrange a relatively neat layer of overlapping potatoes in the bottom of the round baking dish. Scatter over some of the sliced salted fish, then make a second layer of overlapping potatoes. Continue in this way until you have used up all the fish and potatoes, finishing with a layer of potatoes on top. Pour over all the remaining cream from the bowl. Decorate the top with a couple of marjoram flower stems, which I think look beautiful and dry brittle as glass in the oven – but of course, they aren’t essential.
Put the pie in the oven and bake for 60-70 minutes, pressing the potato layers down firmly once or twice during cooking using a spatula. The pie is ready when the potatoes are tender, the top layer is golden and the sauce is bubbling. Remove it from the oven and allow it time to settle – it will be much better, and still nice and hot, after 30 minutes of resting. Serve with a green salad or lemony steamed broccoli.
Recipe continues after advertising adslot-recipe-4

Nutrition

648kcals Calories
45.6g (27.9g saturated) Fat
21.6g Protein
36g (4.5g sugars) Carbs
4.1g Fibre
0.6g Salt

Quick wins & tips

Salted pollock can be difficult to find. If you don’t want to salt your own, as Gill suggests, salted cod or smoked haddock would work just as well. Instead of fresh marjoram, you could use 1½ tbsp dried marjoram, which is more widely available. Fresh thyme would also work.