FANCY FISH FINGERS FOR FRIDAYS

Grown-up salmon fish fingers turn every Friday into a Good Friday.

The Birds Eye company introduced fish fingers in Britain in 1955, thereby leading the children of that great nation to believe that all fish were born oblong and crumbed.

But it worked! They ate them because they were boneless, skinless, pretty much tasteless, and you could have them with chips - also sold, not uncoincidentally, by Birds Eye.

Please note that here, however, we’re talking here about grown-up fish fingers. About treating yourself to some beautiful salmon, coated with lemony crumbs and cooked until crisp and golden outside, and soft and pink inside. The sort of fish fingers you have with a consenting adult and a glass of wine.

FISH FINGER TIPS:

# New Zealand’s Mount Cook Alpine Salmon is the absolute pinnacle for me, with its clean, luxurious taste (and is priced accordingly). Ora is also excellent.  Fresh flathead is also good, because they sort of divide themselves into fingers anyway.

# Insert a spice into the flour you coat the fingers with – a little cumin, paprika, oregano, turmeric or fennel pollen.

# Serve with green peas, because what doesn’t go with green peas? Or home-made chips, or mashed potato, or mashed sweet potato. Or bacon and a fried egg, like a British chippy. Or shredded silverbeet as shown here, washed and quickly wilted in a pan with nothing more than the water on its leaves, then tossed in good olive oil and a handful of currants that have been soaked in red wine vinegar.

# You’ll be needing a chunky tartare sauce that’s jumping with jalapenos as well as gherkins. Recipe below, although it’s really just chuck-in-and-whisk.

# Wanna be real fancy? Make them smaller, call them goujons and serve them with sauce gribiche, a vinaigrette made of hard-boiled eggs, mustard, chives, cornichons, capers, salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil.

# Don’t wanna be fancy? Slip the fish fingers between two slices of soft, fresh white sandwich bread with a pile of tartare sauce and some finely shredded iceberg or cos, and open a beer.

FANCY FISH FINGERS

Serves 2

• 2 x 180 g New Zealand salmon fillets, skinned, pin-boned

• 1 egg, beaten

• Half cup plain flour

• Sea salt and pepper

• 1 cup panko breadcrumbs

• 1 tsp finely grated lemon rind

• 2 tbsp olive oil or mix of vegetable oil and olive oil

• 1 lemon, quartered

CUT each salmon fillet lengthwise into two fingers.

SET out three shallow bowls.

CRACK the egg into one, and lightly beat.

MIX the flour, salt and pepper in the second. 

MIX the breadcrumbs and lemon rind in the third.

COAT each salmon finger into the flour, then the egg, then the breadcrumbs.

DO this beforehand if you like, and refrigerate until you’re ready to go.

HEAT the oil in a frying pan until hot.

FRY the fish fingers over medium heat until golden (about a minute), then turn to ‘set’ the sides, then finish on the remaining side.

SERVE while still pink inside, with lemon.

JALAPENO TARTARE SAUCE

2 tbsp whole egg mayonnaise or aioli
1 tbsp natural yoghurt
1 tbsp pickled jalapeno chillies, chopped
1 tbsp salted capers, rinsed
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
1 tbsp lemon juice or pickle juice
Sea salt to taste

CHUCK everything into a bowl and whisk together.

TASTE. You want the heat of jalapeno, the smack of pickle and the creamy squish of mayo, with a nicely chunky texture.

OR YOU MIGHT PREFER TO TURN THE WHOLE FISH INTO A FINGER.

Check out this crazy-good Whiting Colbert, from Bistro Guillaume (now sadly closed in Sydney, but we’re hoping it will come back, along with its dessert trolley and cheese trolley). It’s such a classic dish, the fish painstakingly de-boned, finely crumbed and deep-fried. Terry (Durack) described it in his review as “perched like a fishing trophy” on a plinth of fried pont neuf potatoes with a big disc of tarragon butter melting on top, which was cute. SBS has Guillaume Brahimi’s recipe.

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Thanks for reading! Feel free to subscribe, for more Jill Dupleix Eats in your inbox every Thursday.  And special thanks to my right-hand man, Terry Durack, for resisting the urge to say “I didn’t know fish had fingers” at any stage during the production of this newsletter.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.