freezing boiled eggs in a fish pie, or not?

[KFC]

After seeing the fish pie photo in the dinner thread, I've decided i'm going to make a few today. I'll be eating one, freezing the rest. The recipe I'm looking at says don't use the eggs in the ones you'll freeze. But I've had frozen boiled eggs in pies I've bought from a restaurant (pre-frozen) and they were fine.

So should I be freezing eggs, or leave the eggs out of those pies?

thanks

[Melman Giraffe]

I wouldn't. You could always add the egg at a later date or just leave it out.

Btw I never add agg to my fish pie

[KFC]

Mm, I was starting from this recipe but modifying it a bit - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3174/fish-pie-i...

Ingredients are assembled... providing there are no disasters with work I'll be having a crack at this in the afternoon.



I just ate a few of the prawns... think I better put them away or there will be none left to go in the pie

[Melman Giraffe]

KFC said:

Mm, I was starting from this recipe but modifying it a bit - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3174/fish-pie-i...

Ingredients are assembled... providing there are no disasters with work I'll be having a crack at this in the afternoon.



I just ate a few of the prawns... think I better put them away or there will be none left to go in the pie

I also like to add some smoked Mackerel

[DoubleSix]

I always add boiled egg and have frozen without any issues...

[matchmaker]

KFC said:

Mm, I was starting from this recipe but modifying it a bit - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3174/fish-pie-i...

Ingredients are assembled... providing there are no disasters with work I'll be having a crack at this in the afternoon.



I just ate a few of the prawns... think I better put them away or there will be none left to go in the pie

Don't like to be negative but...your photo is back to front!

Anyway - had home made fish pie last night. With boiled eggs. 3 clean plates.

[TIGA84]

KFC said:

Mm, I was starting from this recipe but modifying it a bit - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3174/fish-pie-i...

Ingredients are assembled... providing there are no disasters with work I'll be having a crack at this in the afternoon.



I just ate a few of the prawns... think I better put them away or there will be none left to go in the pie

That fish looks too good to be putting in a pie!

[KFC]

TIGA84 said:

That fish looks too good to be putting in a pie!

Yeah, it probably is. But all the cheap cuts of fish are already frozen and I wanted to make it immediately, there was no planning here All the cheap fish you can get here fresh (1 - 2 euros a kg) are whole... you'd need to mess about with peeling them etc. So it was easier to just go with the ones I did to start with, as I had to peel the prawns and prepare the spuds too.

I've ended up with 3 real good sized pies -



With side dishes, they would easily serve 2 people. I think I'll just eat a full pie on my own, with some crusty bread, as a dinner. I probably should have used some smaller dishes and twice the number of pies though. Oh well, lessons learned for next time!

edit - went with eggs in!!

[Melman Giraffe]

KFC said:

TIGA84 said:

That fish looks too good to be putting in a pie!

Yeah, it probably is. But all the cheap cuts of fish are already frozen and I wanted to make it immediately, there was no planning here All the cheap fish you can get here fresh (1 - 2 euros a kg) are whole... you'd need to mess about with peeling them etc. So it was easier to just go with the ones I did to start with, as I had to peel the prawns and prepare the spuds too.

I've ended up with 3 real good sized pies -



With side dishes, they would easily serve 2 people. I think I'll just eat a full pie on my own, with some crusty bread, as a dinner. I probably should have used some smaller dishes and twice the number of pies though. Oh well, lessons learned for next time!

More mash you've got a few gaps fella

edit - went with eggs in!!

[KFC]

Haha, I ran out of mash!! Tried to spread it around a bit to fill the holes before it went in the oven.

[DoubleSix]

KFC said:

Yeah, it probably is. But all the cheap cuts of fish are already frozen and I wanted to make it immediately, there was no planning here !

So cook from frozen at the poaching stage.

[KFC]

I wasn't sure how that'd turn out so didn't want to chance it. Like I said in another thread, I'm not a particularly great cook as I don't do it very often



I know its not the best presentation/photo but that tasted great, really hit the spot. Each pie could easily have been a meal for 2... I wouldn't have had any major problem squeezing a meal for 3 out of it with some peas and a large crusty loaf.

I finished that one myself with a pint of milk and feel pretty stuffed... it took some effort to deal with my after meal Dairy Milk Mint Bubbly!

28 euros it all cost in total - 10 euros of that was prawns though.

[Melman Giraffe]

Euros! Where are you?

[KFC]

Portugal, south coast.

[Melman Giraffe]

KFC said:

Portugal, south coast.

Good sea food to be had then

[KFC]

Some of the seafood here is tremendous. The stuff in the pic came from a regular supermarket. But its all fresh, so its way better quality than UK supermarkets. My dogs eat quite a lot of fresh fish as the cheaper ones there are 1 euro/kg.

What you really need to do is go to a proper fish market though - its even cheaper again, and better quality. Or speak to the fishermen as they're coming off a boat - I gave one a 6 pack of beer (cost me 3 euros) for 2 live lobsters

I ate a slice of that salmon raw today - it tasted sushi quality. Might need to get some wasabi next time I'm there...

[IanA2]

KFC said:

I ate a slice of that salmon raw today - it tasted sushi quality...

The colour of that salmon suggests that it is farmed. I would not eat farmed salmon raw. Just me perhaps.

[KFC]

IanA2 said:

The colour of that salmon suggests that it is farmed. I would not eat farmed salmon raw. Just me perhaps.

I've no idea - it came from a supermarket fish counter, unlabelled.


I tried to do one of the frozen fish pies today.... very poor in comparison to the original that I ate immediately after cooking first time around.

Could the size of the pies have contributed? Some of the bits of fish ended up seeming over cooked - which I suppose isn't a surprise since they were done twice. I suspect the size of the pies didn't help - I had to do it in the oven for 80 minutes at 200 degrees to get it properly heated through. It was fully defrosted, in a thin foil tray on a baking tray.

I'm thinking next time do individual foil tray pies that could reheat far faster? Even if they need to be so small I'd want to eat 2 that seems okay. Or is there any better way to do this? Or do I just need to accept some food frozen and reheated, isn't going to be the same. And concentrate on chillis or currys which never seem to worse, and sometimes better?

I just didn't particularly enjoy todays pie... and doing a single pie would have been effectively the same amount of work. ie too much for me to bother doing for a single meal to feed myself.

Any thoughts from the masterchefs who hang around in here

thanks

[DoubleSix]

hmmm the fish shouldn't be cooking twice ideally.

If making a pie for reheat later I would only poach it just enough to flake and leave almost translucent, then the fish will cook on the reheat.

Alternatively it may be that the fish is being crucified on the actual reheat, so maybe adjust this so the reheat is not so aggressive as to nuke the fish. If you can see the white proteins leaving the fish at any stage then yup, it's overdone.

[prand]

DoubleSix said:

hmmm the fish shouldn't be cooking twice ideally.

If making a pie for reheat later I would only poach it just enough to flake and leave almost translucent, then the fish will cook on the reheat.

Alternatively it may be that the fish is being crucified on the actual reheat, so maybe adjust this so the reheat is not so aggressive as to nuke the fish. If you can see the white proteins leaving the fish at any stage then yup, it's overdone.

I've made fish pies with eggs and frozen them. Make sure it's cooked properly (i.e. needs to reach a core temp of 75C) as with any precooked frozen food.