Recipe: Simon Gault’s Smoked Kahawai Pie with Dutch Babies
A hearty smoked fish pie using one of New Zealand’s most sustainable fish, kahawai.
Recipe: Extract from Summer with Simon Gault Photos: Vanessa Lewis
My mum has been making Dutch Babies for as long as I can remember and rather than serving the filling in a pie, I like to serve it alongside the Dutch Babies. By replacing the fish stock with chicken stock and the smoked fish with smoked chicken you’d have a smoked chicken pie, which would also be delicious. Note the extended chilling time for the Dutch Babies batter — you’ll need to prepare this before the rest of the dish.
Serves: 6
INGREDIENTS
60g butter
1½ cups finely chopped onion
1½ cups finely sliced celery
6 tbsp flour
2 cups fish or vegetable stock, warmed
½ cup cream, warmed, plus ¼ cup extra to finish pie
zest of 1 lemon
1 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp green peppercorns, finely sliced
1 cup chopped Italian parsley
4 cups flaked smoked kahawai
6 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
Dutch Babies, to serve (recipe below)
1 bunch of Italian parsley, to serve
METHOD
Melt the butter in a large saucepan over a medium heat and add the onion and celery. Sauté for 4–5 minutes until the onion starts to soften; you don’t want the onion to colour. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon and cook for 3 minutes.
Remove from the heat, add half the stock and stir vigorously with a whisk. Add the remaining stock and return to the heat continuing to whisk. Once the lumps have gone you can swap back to a wooden spoon and continue to cook for another 6–8 minutes.
Pour in the 1/2 cup cream and season with freshly ground black or white pepper, then add in the lemon zest and juice, green peppercorns and chopped parsley. Add the flaked fish, hard-boiled eggs and extra ¼ cup cream to the sauce. Serve alongside the Dutch Babies with parsley to garnish.
Dutch Babies
INGREDIENTS
6 large eggs
1 cup flour
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk
30g butter, melted
3 tbsp solid vegetable shortening
METHOD
Place the eggs, flour, salt, milk and melted butter in a blender, cover and blend for 30 seconds at medium speed until smooth. Scrape the sides with a rubber spatula and blend again. Cover the batter and set aside for a minimum of 2 hours at room temperature, or chill overnight.
Preheat oven to 220°C. Using ½ tablespoon shortening for each, grease six 400ml ovenproof ramekins and place in the oven for 5 minutes or until super hot. Pour the batter into the ramekins and bake for 15 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C and bake for a further 5–10 minutes until the edges are puffed and golden. Remove from the oven and let sit for a few minutes before serving.
Extracted from Summer with Simon Gault, Penguin Random House NZ, RRP $50. Text © Simon Gault, 2019. Photography © Vanessa Lewis, 2019
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