Seafood Pie Delight

There's something very welcoming about the warmth of homemade pie to counter the chill of winter. I wanted to cook something with fish for dinner but at the same time I wanted to make something pie like so Fish Pie would have been the obvious choice. So I went to the supermarket and as I stood at the seafood counter indecisiveness hit and I could not decide what I wanted. After a lot of uhmming and arrhing I decided to ditch the notion of fish only and got a seafood mixture that had fish, prawns, mussels and calamari.

Whilst I have eaten several outstanding fish pies in seafood restaurants over the years I had never made one. I love love love the combination of dill and dijon in seafood pasta so I started looking at different pie recipes to see if other people had tried that combo before and lo and behold I found that the good folks at Souvlaki For The Soul had the very same thought.

So inspired by their lovely recipe and photos I made my very first Seafood Pie - not topped with pastry but with a mash of potato and cauliflower which I must say was a success. I made a family size pie, enough to feed 8 people and by the time dinner was over there was only 1 serve left. My family consist of 2 adults and 2 toddlers so the fact we ate 7serves of pie between us is pretty damn impressive I must say. Here's my pie, not the prettiest looking thing BUT I promise you, YUM YUM!!

SEAFOOD PIE WITH CAULIFLOWER AND POTATO MASH

1kg of seafood mix (fish, prawns, mussels and squid)
1 leek
1 large onion
1 lemon
2 carrots
3 sticks of celery
6 potatoes
1/2 head of cauliflower
a big bunch of dill chopped fine (about 4 tablespoons)
6-8 stalks of spinach
2-3 tablespoon Dijon mustard ( I used 3 as I love it)
approx 150ml cream
a handful of grated cheddar cheese
butter
salt and pepper

1. Cut leeks, onions, carrots, celery, 2 potatoes (diced) and garlic and cook it down for about 5-6 minutes. Then add seafood and cook for another 2-3 minutes.

2. Add mustard, dill, juice of lemon and give a good stir. Then add cream, stir and season well. Set aside in a baking dish while you make the topping.

3. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

4. Steam or boil potatoes and cauliflower until soft. Mash together but it doesn't have to be super smooth as the cauliflower and potato chunks will add a nice texture to the top. Add butter and seasoning to taste.

5. Cut spinach and add it as a layer on top of seafood mix. Second with salt.

6. Top the baking dish with the mash. Scatter cheese and pop in oven for 40 minutes.