Rosti-Topped Fish Bake
Rosti-topped fish bake
By Donna Ross
Prep time: 20 minutes (including cooking the sauce)
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serves 2
This quick kind-of-fish-pie is an all-in-one dinner, and although has a few individual steps, shouldn't take up too much time as the sauce cooks while you continue with other steps. It also lends itself to using up whatever bits and pieces you have in the fridge and vegetable box, so substitute the kale with other greens, or some of the potato with another root like parsnip or Jerusalem artichoke, and skip the cheese if you don't fancy it. And although you can leave the bacon out if you don't want to open a pack specially for this dish, it does give a great flavour to the sauce.
100g streaky bacon, snipped into little bits with scissors
1 leek, finely sliced and rinsed
1 tablespoon flour
25g butter
150-200ml milk
Handful of kale, shredded and washed
300g white fish fillets like whiting or haddock
300g potato, grated (skin on or off, as you like)
1 egg
50-80g cheese, grated or chopped into small pieces
Heat the oven to 180c.
Start the sauce off by frying the bacon over quite a high heat for a few minutes, until you've driven off any moisture and teh bacon has started to crisp up and turn brown. Add the leek and a knob of butter and lower the heat a little. Cook the leek for a few minutes until softened. Add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes until the flour has thoroughly stuck itself to the bacon and leek. Start adding the milk a bit at a time, storing well between splashes so that you make a thickened sauce. The amount of milk you need will vary according to how fast you cook the sauce and how thick you want the sauce to be. Lower the heat and let the sauce gently cook while you wash and shred the kale and grate the potato.
Grate the potato onto a tea towel or cloth, and squeeze out all teh excess moisture over the sink. Tip the resulting lump of potato into a bowl, and add some salt and pepper, the egg and if you want, a few lumps of cheese and mix well.
Place the kale in the bottom of a small oven-proof dish. Lay the fish fillets on top (cut them into pieces if it looks like they won't fit) and pour over the sauce. Using a fork, pull out clumps of the shredded potato mixture onto the sauce so that you create a reasonably even layer of potato across the top of the sauce.
Bake for about 25 minutes, by which time the top of the potato layer will have turned brown and crisp and teh fish should be cooked through. Serve with more vegetables if you feel you need to up your intake for the day!