Smoked Snapper Pie

Kia ora Koutou, with the glorious weather all around us it has been easy to coordinate “research” days out of the office to investigate geographical marine biomass and the effects on emotional stability. To that effect and purely for the scientific reasons a small but intrepid group headed out to the shallows in search of Pagrus auratus aka Snapper aka Taamure.

Two hours after the low tide with good flow, open flats, no  tackle busting structure within strike zone so light lines, small sinkers, fresh bait were deployed into the targeted area.

Size over time over horsepower ratios recorded. No stink eye or milky specimens in the bin. A great couple of hours and given the average size binned plenty of good heads and frames for the smoker. Just what to do with those big fat pesky fillets?

Fat fillet flavour is accentuated when caressed with native or fruit wood smoke at a low heat for several hours, allowing for a tender bark to form as the flesh cooks out, evenly and slowly.

So into a brine they go as we head off to find a suitable smokehouse. My current array of kitchen’s are in lockdown as her indoors packs and prepares for our move, empty nesting but a different story for a different time. 2 days later and with fillets smoked and tested they are just fabulous, moist, tender, golden in colour and sweet with the subtly of smoke.

Righto that all said, scene set, lets crack on to an easy versatile luscious dish that has not let me down yet.

In a medium heat pot knob in a lump of butter, melt, add in 1 diced onion of medium build, sauté off until onion has sweated out the moisture and turned a light golden hue. Add in another good knob of butter and two heaped desert spoons of butter. Mix with vigor as you are building a roux. Once the butter and flour has combined to a consistent paste add 2 cups of milk slowly add whisky to combine until you have a velvet smooth liquid, thick in consistency. Remove from the heat, add chunks of the smoked snapper and fold in carefully to ensure snapper retains texture.

Then into ramekins, add a thin layer of potato mash and a layer of grated cheddar of gruyere. Into the oven for 10 minutes at circa 160C to melt the cheese and then you are ready to serve. Season to taste but go easy on salt. No real vegetables were injured in this production although you could always garnish end result with greenness if so desired

Alas, with the wafting of smoked fish pie on the air the team were early into galley for taste test and I forgot to take a picture for the newsletter. The pie was consumed in its entirety with no remnants for afternoon smoko.

Kia nui te kai!