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FISH PIE (another way)
Take flounders, clean and dry them well in a cloth, boil, and separate the fish from the bones. Boil the bones in a saucepan with a pint of the water which was used for the fish, a bit of parsley, lemon-peel, pepper, and salt. When reduced to the quantity required for gravy, make a crust and line a pie-dish. Put some bits of butter in the bottom of the dish, then a layer of fish, strew chopped parsley, and sprinkle with flour, pepper, and salt. Proceed until the dish is full, pour in the gravy, and bake with a top crust. Time, about three-quarters of an hour to bake.
A double-crust fish pie built on a quick stock made from the fish's own bones. The fish is cooked twice, so the first cooking should be brief.
- Poach, do not boilFlounder fillets are done in three to four minutes in barely simmering water, and they will be baked again for another 45 minutes. Take them out the moment the flesh turns opaque or the pie will be dry and cottony.
- Keep the poaching waterThe instruction to boil the bones in "a pint of the water which was used for the fish" is the point of the method: that water is already a light fish stock. Simmer the bones in it only until reduced to the gravy quantity wanted, then strain; fish bones are generally reckoned to turn bitter with long cooking.
- How much gravy"The quantity required for gravy" is roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup for a standard 9-inch pie dish. It should just come up around the fish, not float it, since the flour strewn between the layers will thicken it as it bakes.
- The fishAny flat white fish works: flounder, plaice, sole, dab. If you cannot get whole fish with bones, use fillets and a good fish stock, though the pie loses some body.
- The crustThe recipe says only "make a crust"; a plain short crust or a rough puff suits a savoury pie of this kind, not a sweet pastry. Line the dish, chill it, and bake on a preheated tray or the base will steam under the gravy.
- OvenThe recipe gives no oven heat, only the time. A moderate oven, around 375-400F, will set the top crust and the filling in three-quarters of an hour; if the pastry colours too fast, cover it loosely with foil for the last 15 minutes.
- Lemon-peelUse pared zest with no white pith, and lift it out with the bones when you strain, or the gravy can pick up a bitter edge.
- YieldAbout 2 lb of whole flounder, or 1 lb of fillet, fills a 9-inch pie dish and serves four.
Fish pie under a pastry crust is older in British cooking than the potato-topped version most people now picture, which belongs largely to the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Cassell's recipe is presented as an "another way" variant. Flounder was a cheap, abundant inshore fish in Victorian Britain, sold small and often whole, and the recipe's insistence on reusing the poaching liquid and the bones reflects a kitchen economy in which a pint of flavoured water was not thrown away. The absence of milk or cream is worth noting: the binding here is nothing but reduced fish stock, flour dusted between the layers, and butter, which is a considerably leaner and sharper dish than the modern bechamel-based pie.