Pie and Mash on-line

[hoggie]

i also just bought the book on ebay, this board is very addictive

[Oddley]

Rik vonTrense everyone to their own. But if you are going to criticize I suggest you make the recipe first then do so, as guessing how it is going to taste is not helpful and is useless as positive critism.

Please post in full with exact ingredients and method your recipe so I can make it and give an opinion.

As far as the eel not having any effect on the taste, let me tell you that your palette must be very dull. For the true and traditional liqueur it is vital. I have tried it with eel and without eels with fresh fish stock and with chicken stock also with stock cubes.

the method of cooking the pie is also very important. the way I suggested will give an entirely different taste and texture to a pie, than cooking in the normal fashion.

Have you ever tried to cook pie and mash. Or even a pie?

Liqueur with Nam Pla I'm sure it's on every eastender food shelf ready to use in their pie and mash. So you prefer a sauce made with water and corn flour too a beautiful bechemel made with butter and flour. Oh well no accounting for taste.

Yes you are right there is certainly a difference between the authentic dish as served in the East End and one we would want our families to savour.

[pokerpete]

My recollection of pie and mash is that the pies did not have a wet interior, and the pie crust was hard and dry, hence the liquer. Without it the meal would have been very dry. I don't know what they are like nowadays as I haven't had any for about 25 years (pie & mash that is)
To be honest, I was never over keen on it with the hard crust and lumpy mash. Like Oddley, I much prefer my own pies and my own mash. I also prefer it with brown gravy, although I must say I like parsley sauce on conger eel and mash..

Regards, Paul Kribs

Conger eel eh superb. The rump steak of the fishy world.

[Fallow Buck]

I spearfished a few morays when I was younger but my mum would never let them into the kitchen!! I had a mate that loved them so I used to give them to him.

They often live in a cave with a big grouper. the grouper hunts and the moray pickes bits that float about. My mate would always shoot the eeel over the table fish!!!

Rgds,
FB

[jenny_haddow]

Thanks for the recipes guys, eels I can get (I live in the fens). There seems to be lots of schools of thought on this dish, so it really must hark back to memories of meals enjoyed in the past. I place conger eel in that category, not so readily available now, but it was a regular dinner when I was a kid, just love it. My dad had chronic duodenal ulcers when I grew up so we all lived on an ulcer diet. Mother could't cope with more than one dish at a time, and that was nearly always fish, and always on the bone, knew my way round a herring by the age of five.
When I lived in Nigeria I had a delectable offering called ngussi soup. It was made with goat meat and fish heads and served with pounded yam, Lagos's answer to pie and mash!

Cheers

Jen

[vinner]

Okay, then, it sounds like pie and mash has the same provenance that "authentic" Louisiana Cajun gumbo has.... i.e., whatever happens to be in season, whatever way mom used to make it, whatever tastes good. Guess I'm hungry for some crawfish and oyster gumbo right about now.

[Rik vonTrense]

Oddley I certainly am not criticising your method of of cooking pie and mash as I am certainly going to try that for the family............

what I was saying is that for a likness for the East End dish of the day which would not be so gourmet ......but the use of fish stock cubes instead of the real thing would no come amiss to get a rough idea of the dish as served.

After all if you are not used to eating stewed eels then how do you tell the difference. Take a piece of conger eel and cut it in bite sized pieces along with the central bone season and cook it......and let it cool and set off then chill it. ...turn it into a dish and sprinkle with vinegar and pepper and you would have a job to tell the difference between jellied eels and that except for the abscence of the eel bones.

Even dog fish with it's gristly bone is a candidate as is shaped monk fish tails used for scampi in batter in lots of restaurants.

A case of what the eye doesn't see...........we can't assume that everyone is a connoisseur of stewed eels.

I am not all that fond of minced beef as a filling for a meat pie.


.[/list]

[Oddley]

Hi Rik
I have tried conger eel and it is just not the same. the conger eel has a much stronger flavour.

The pie filling I use is minced (by me) chuck steak as you have probably read I buy it in great quantity from Smithfield. The thing about chopping beef is, if it's a little tough it can be a bit off putting. You can of course get over this by using fillet, but this seems a bit of a waste.

What I would recommend is try it the first time with the proper ingredients. Then after that do as you wish.

I hope you and your family enjoy the recipe. I have been working on it, on and off for a number of years and I think it is pretty close. We did a taste test a while back. We bought some pie and mash and I made some. we then did a blind tasting and without boasting mine was preferred by everyone that took part.

[Wohoki]

I JUST WISH I COULD GET SOME DAMNED EELS. Will you all stop it, 'cause some of us can't get eel pie, or eels, or conger, or crawfish and oyster gumbo (especially the last). My stomach is giving me orders that I can't follow, and it hurts.

Please, take pity.

[vinner]

Ahh, but you can easily make crawfish and oyster gumbo......

[Wohoki]

If I could get crawfish and oysters..........

[Paul Kribs]

The difference in taste between a freshwater eel and a saltwater conger is very noticable. I like them both. When I used to fish competitions on waters such as the Royal Military Canal in Kent, I used to follow the scaleman and after the net of fish was weighed and recorded I used to purloin the eels. As you can gather, I used to feast on jellied eels quite a lot.

Regards, Paul Kribs

[Oddley]

I love fresh oysters. I often get a half dozen, shuck the top shell a squeeze of lemon juice a couple of drops of Tabasco absolutely fabulous.

If crawfish is the same as crayfish then they used to sell them down billingsgate. The funny thing is, there were two guys licensed to fish for them in the middle of Hyde park, the serpentine. These were American crayfish that were escapees. They used to get something like 60 lbs a day of them.

Wohoki, I think you will have to make an early morning trip down to billingsgate.

[saucisson]

I JUST WISH I COULD GET SOME DAMNED EELS. Will you all stop it, 'cause some of us can't get eel pie, or eels, or conger, or crawfish and oyster gumbo (especially the last). My stomach is giving me orders that I can't follow, and it hurts.

Please, take pity.

Look at the very first post:

http://www.eelhouse.co.uk/

We sometimes see Conger in Tescos or Sainsburys, but it is rare.

[Wohoki]

When I used to fish in the Midlands(Hampshire is too expensive for a prole like me to fish) I used to take a landing-net with a rock in it, dump a handful of catfood in the middle and drop it in the river. For lunch I would have a dozen or so crayfish, poached in Cuppasoup. Happy days.


And you're right, saucisson, I know that I could buy them, but this is peasant food: IT SHOULD BE CHEAP. Sorry for shouting, but I'll be hanged if I'll pay through the nose for food that our grandparents used to be ashamed of eating.