Fish Pie

The hero ingredient in this simple tuna fish pie is definitely the scotch bonnet pepper; it just marries the tuna, tomatoes and cheese together so beautifully.

Makes: a 7 inch pie

Ingredients:

For the filling

• 1 small onion
• 1 large tomato
• ½ scotch bonnet pepper (or to taste)
• 1 tuna can (180g, drained and flaked)
• 1 tbsp. oil
• ¼ tsp. salt (or to taste)
• ½ cup cheddar cheese (shredded)

For the dough

• 200g flour
• 1/3 tsp. salt
• 80g unsalted butter (cold and cut into cubes)
• 9 tbsp. cold water (or as needed)

For the egg wash

• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp. full cream milk

Instructions:

1. Dice the onion. Deseed the tomato and chop it into 1 cm squares. Slice the scotch bonnet pepper thinly.
2. Heat the oil in a small pan and add the onion and scotch bonnet pepper and sauté until the onion softens. Then add the chopped tomatoes and cook for around 45 seconds and then add the tuna and salt. Mix to combine and let the mixture cook for another half a minute. Have a taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. That’s it for the filling; now just set it aside to cool down completely while you prepare the dough (you’ll be adding the cheese later when you are assembling the pie).
3. Sift flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the butter to the flour (the butter needs to be very cold and cut into cubes. Popping the butter back into the fridge for around 5 minutes after cutting it into cubes can help with making sure it’s cold). Then using your fingers mix the butter and flour together until you have a mixture that resembles coarse breadcrumbs.  
4. Then add cold water into the flour and butter mixture gradually, a tablespoon at time while gently mixing and kneading. Carefully keep adding cold water until you can press the dough into a ball; it’s not going to be smooth though. Wrap the dough tightly with cling wrap and leave it in the fridge for 30 minutes.
5. Line a 7 inch round pan with baking paper and set it aside (to line it you can rub some butter or oil on the pan and just press the paper on to it). Alternately you can also line the pan with aluminum foil.
6. Preheat your oven at 190 degrees Celsius.
7. When the 30 minutes is over, take out the dough from the fridge and divide it into two; one piece slightly bigger the other.
8. Take the bigger piece and roll it into a circle; aim for a diameter of around 9 inches. (You can roll it on a clean surface lightly dusted with flour or place the dough portion in between two sheets of baking paper and then roll. We recommend the baking paper method as it makes things so much easier. And also, rolling it is easier when you apply a little bit of pressure. Since there’s butter in the dough, it tends to crack when rolling if it gets too cold. So you’ll have to watch out for this. If it starts getting cracked, just keep the dough at room temperature for around 5 minutes and then knead it a little to get it to soften. However, do note that putting the dough in the fridge is an important part of this recipe as you won’t be able to roll it at all if you don’t chill it in the fridge.)
9. Place the rolled out dough in the lined pan. It should be coming over the edges of the pan a little.
10. Next, place the tuna filling on top of the dough in the pan and spread it nicely leaving an edge of around an inch. Then add the shredded cheese on top of the tuna filling.
11. Then take the smaller piece of dough and roll it into a circle again. This time you can aim for a diameter of just a little bit smaller than 7 inches.
12. Place the second piece of rolled out dough over the tuna filling. Then fold the edges of the bottom dough over the edges of the top dough and press to seal. You can pinch the edges together or you can press down on the edges with a fork to make the edges look pretty. Using a fork, poke a few holes on the top of the pie so that the steam can escape while baking.
13. Make the egg wash by combining the egg yolk with milk and brush this mixture on top of the pie (you don’t have to brush all of it on top of the pie. Just brush enough to give it a nice thin coating).
14. Place the pan on the middle rack of the preheated oven and bake until it looks golden. For us this took 40 minutes. But do remember that oven temperatures differ.
15. When the pie is baked, take it out of the oven and let it cool down for around 10 minutes before slicing.