Icelandic-style fish and vegetable pie

A recipe from cooking-ez.com

For 6 people, you will need:

• 1 200 g salt-cod
• 2 3 carrots
• 3 1 leek
• 4 2 handfuls peas
• 5 2 handfuls green beans
• 6 100 g button or field mushrooms
• 7 200 ml liquid cream
• 8 20 g beaten egg
• 9 200 g Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)
• 10 1 knob butter
• 11 a little goose fat
• 12 ½ lemon
• 13 1 shallot
• 14 salt
• 15 pepper
• Total weight: 1,720 grams

Times:

Preparation	Resting	Cooking	Start to finish
1 hour 45 min.	2 hours	50 min.	4 hours 35 min.

Step by step recipe

1	The day before, rinse salt-cod under cold water to remove salt on surface. Then put in a bowl full of cold water to soak overnight. Next day, change water and leave to soak until using.
2	Remove fish from water, and put in a pan. Cover with cold water, and just simmer over a low heat. Water should never boil, otherwise salt-cod becomes rubbery. Ideally 10 minutes cooking at very gentle simmer (90°C or 194°F).
3	As soon as salt-cod becomes opaque, stop cooking and drain. Allow to cool and break in small pieces, disposing of skins and bones. Set aside.
4	Cut puff pastry into circles, using cutter, one circle per guest, of diameter 1 inch wider than your soup dish. Glaze and, if you wish, make decorative cuts on the surface with a sharp knife. Refrigerate until using.
5	Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add 1 tablespoon salt per litre. Peel, wash and cut the vegetables into small pieces of similar size. Turnips in small triangles.
6	Leek sliced. Green beans in short lengths.
7	Carrots in small triangles. Green peas just shelled, to be added raw.
8	Plunge turnips in boiling water until they are just cooked but still a bit crunchy. When done remove from water immediately, and put in cold water to stop cooking. Drain and dry them, and set aside on absorbant paper. Continue in the same manner with all vegetables (except green peas) and set aside.
9	Peel mushrooms, cut in small pieces. In a frying pan, make melt some goose fat. When it's very hot, add mushrooms and fry 2 - 3 minutes on high heat. When cooked, add the juice of ½ lemon, salt, pepper and set aside.
10	Once all vegetables are cooked and drained, put a knob of butter in a pan, melt and add the chopped shallot. Cook one minute, add salt and pepper and all the vegetables, mix and add the salt-cod. Don't cook any further, this is just to blend the ingredients.
11	Preheat your oven at 240°C or 464°F. Prepare the soup dishes: Fill to ¾ with the vegetable and fish mixture.
12	Pour into each 2 tablespoons of cream. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.
13	Wet all round the top of soup dish with a brush dipped in cold water or your finger. This will make the puff pastry stick.
14	Put a circle of puff pastry oover top of dish.
15	Stick all around by pulling down a litte.
16	Do the same with all the soup dishes. Place on a baking sheet.
17	An amusing variation: instead of soup dishes use jam jars. The glass allows guests to see food in the jar before eating it.
18	And put in the oven until the puff pastry is golden brown.

Remarks

All proportions in this recipe are suggestions, don't hesitate to adapt to your taste.
Don't throw away the vegetable water after cooking, it's a good stock that can be used to cook rice, pasta or make a soup.
If you want to know where the "Icelandic-style" came from, the idea came to me after discovering this beautiful country and its people during summer holidays. It was a real coup de foudre, and I dream of returning, especially to go to Jokulsarlon one of the most beautiful places on earth.

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