How to Cook Fish Pie in the Steam Oven

Fish Pie is not a very enticing name for a recipe. Still, this wonderful casserole of poached fish and shellfish in a béchamel sauce, topped with cheese topped mashed potatoes is really just a seafood version of Shepherd’s pie and it’s delicious. You can keep it simple with just fish or splash out and make it with some crab, lobster tail, scallops, or shrimp.

Fish Pie with Shrimp & Wild Cod

What is the Benefit of Cooking the Fish Pie in the Steam Oven

Well, Fish Pie is a simple name but truthfully there are quite a few steps involved in preparing this dish. Actually preparing the various components of the dish in the Steam oven really cuts down on the preparation time. Another advantage is that once the food is in the oven you can set the timer and focus on preparing the béchamel sauce without having to monitor the cooking in four pans at one time.

This recipe calls for potatoes to be boiled and mashed, eggs to be hard-cooked and fish and shellfish to be poached so if made on the cooktop that’s 3 saucepans. Then you need to make a béchamel sauce so we are up to 4 saucepans.

So instead of cooking the various components in saucepans, it’s much easier to set the Steam oven to Steam mode and steam them in dishwasher safe containers. All you have to do is plan out the timing.

How to Steam Potatoes, Hard-Boiled Eggs, and Poach Fish in the Steam Oven

All three components can be cooked in the Steam mode at 212F the important thing is to plan out the timing so nothing gets overcooked.

When steaming potatoes in the Steam oven for mashed potatoes, cut the potatoes into small chunks and place them in a solid container with a little water and salt. Allow 20 - 25 minutes for them to cook until soft enough to mash.

Eggs can be steamed to hard-boiled directly on the oven rack or in a perforated pan, allow 20 minutes, and plunge the eggs into cold water before peeling.

In this recipe, the fish is poached in milk with a bay leaf and a small onion. Allow approximately 6 minutes to poach the chunks of fish and shrimp.

All three dishes can go into the oven at the same time but set the timer for 6 minutes and remove the fish when the timer has elapsed. Reset the timer for 15 minutes and continue cooking the eggs and potatoes.

Making the Béchamel Sauce and Assembling the Fish Pie

Once the seafood comes out of the oven you can begin making the béchamel sauce. Remove the onion and bay leaf from the milk and transfer the seafood to a prepared casserole dish, melt the butter and stir in the flour to make the roux for the sauce. When the roux is cooked, carefully add the hot milk stirring all the time to prevent any lumps from forming, check the seasoning, and set the sauce aside to keep warm.

When the timer has elapsed, remove the eggs from the oven and place them in a bowl with cold water. Remove the potatoes and if they are soft enough mash them to your preferred consistency with some butter and ½ & ½ and of course salt and freshly cracked pepper.

Peel the eggs and cut them into slices or quarters and scatter them over the poached seafood, then pour the béchamel sauce over the seafood. Top with the mashed potatoes, spread them gently to form a nice topping, and sprinkle with some grated cheddar cheese.

Now the pie just has to go back into the oven for 15-20 minutes to warm through, however, if you refrigerate the pie before serving allow at least 30 minutes for it to heat through using the combination Convection Steam mode.

Cooking styles have changed over the years and modern ovens feature cooking modes to better suit our changed cooking style, however, it can be challenging to know which modes work best with older recipes. Stay tuned for my next post, Cooking a Souffle in Convection.

Larissa, Your Convection Enthusiast