FISH

If there is one thing I enjoy cooking, it's fish. I love a nice piece of fish, or some good seafood. I was recently asked for a recipe from my pub restaurant days, which was a Fisherman's Pie that I used to make.

The fish pie has many names, such as Fisherman's pie, Ocean pie or Admiral pie. I'm sure there are others. The difference between them is just that large companies add seafood to the recipes and change the name to get you to buy their product. Prawns, oysters, lobster, even Tiger shrimp are added, to produce something a bit different. Rule of thumb is basically a fish in white sauce, topped with potato, usually mashed, sometimes sliced. My version is as follows

The Fisherman's pie

2 x Ocean Fish (fillet or steak)

1 x Salmon (fillet or steak)

handful of prawns (and any other seafood you wish mix in)

handful peas (fresh or frozen)

handful of chopped spring onion

handful of finely chopped leek

half a block of butter (125g)

4oz White flour

2 pints of milk

half a glass of white wine

sea salt and cracked black pepper (seasoning)

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You may notice that I have not listed hard boiled eggs. If you want to put eggs into your fish pie you can do, I personally think that it is wrong to do so, which is just my opinion.

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Make sure you have a separate chopping board for the fish, if you use colour coded boards, you want the blue one. Once the fish is prepared, replace the chopping board with a clean one.

For the choice of fish, you can use any white fish you want. It can be Cod, Haddock, Halibut, even River Cobbler (Basa).

Take your fish steak (or fillets), and roughly break up in pieces, put in a bowl, and prep the rest of the ingredients for cooking. Use a large pan, such as a boiling pan, crock pot, or wok, and melt the butter. When the butter has melted add the fish, and stir, sealing the fish, then add the spring onion and leek's, then drop the heat low until the fish is cooked, usually takes only a few minutes.

Now add the flour and stir in, and cook for one minute, then you need to slowly add the milk while stirring, until the sauce thickens. Once the sauce has thickened, add the seasoning, prawn's, pea's and slowly add the wine as you stir in. Just cook for a further 4 minutes. All you need to do now is top with mashed potato, maybe a little bit of grated cheese, and finish in the oven, for 15 minutes or so, or until the top has browned off.

You can put in a tub, and store in the fridge, and make individual fish pies at a later date, just remember to use within three days.

The Fish pie goes back to the 1100's, when it was more of an eel pie than fish. There is the stargazy pie, which is not only made with pilchards, but parts of the fish protrude out of the pie crust, such as the fish head and tail. Russian pirog is a layered pie, made with fish and veg (can also be made with meat), made with dried fish in the commander islands. They also eat Frikadeller, which is a minced cod dumpling, similar to a fish cake.

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If you fancy a go at making your own fish cake’s, it's a pretty simple process. I usually make a batch and freeze them. Can be kept up to three month's frozen. I'll give you batch measurements here, just adjust to your personal needs.

n.b. If you make these without the fish, they make nice potato cakes

Fish cakes

3 x medium fish fillets (for fish cakes – obviously)

half an Ice-cream tub of mashed potato (app. 2-2.5 litres)

1lb crumbly cheese (I use Cheshire)

handful of mozzarella or cheddar (mix in with Cheshire)

handful chopped spring onion

seasoning and pinch mixed herbs

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3 eggs

splash of milk

flour

breadcrumbs

Cook off the fish in the oven for 5-10 mins until cooked, then break up into flakes. Mix with the mash, spring onion, cheese, seasoning and herbs. When mixed, form into disks of any size you wish, about the size of the palm of your hand should be fine, and place on a tray. Pop into the fridge for about ten minutes.

Organise some space, and get a tray or tub of the breadcrumb, and a tub of the eggs mixed with milk, and a tray or tub of the flour. When the fish cakes have chilled, your going to coat them in the flour, then dip them in the egg batter mix and finally coat them in breadcrumb. Place each one on a tray with a sheet of baking paper. You can freeze or chill them, the best cooking method is deep frying from frozen, serve with a side salad.

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One I like to do as a snack from time to time is prawn toast. To do this you will need

Prawns

soy sauce

paprika

seasoning

egg

tumeric

sesame seeds

sliced bread

Dead easy this one. If the bread is left out for ten or fifteen minutes to stale off, it will make things a little easier. Just cut the crust off, and cut corner to corner into four triangles.

Mash the prawns, then add the rest of the ingredients and make a paste. Spread the paste thickly on the bread, then dip in the sesame seeds, then just fry off for about 30 seconds to a minute. Voila!

Serve with sweet chilli sauce

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Everyone has had, or knows of, fish and chips, one of the most iconic British meals available. One you may not be familiar with is Fish Orly. This is very similar, and is easy to make, but is an upgraded version of the humble battered cod.

You'll need a white fish, such as Cod, I like to use Vietnamese River Cobbler. It's tasty and a lot cheaper than Cod, sometimes known as Basa, it's a plant feeding catfish called Pangasius Bocourti.

What you need to do is make a marinade, I usually make the following.

White or malt vinegar

Ginger paste

onion paste

garlic purée

Maldon sea salt

Cracked black pepper

You can add coriander leaf or some chilli seeds if you wish

Mix the ingredients and marinade the fish in the fridge for one hour. While the fish marinades, mix up some batter. You will need

150g white flour

150g cornflour

pinch of salt

one egg

quarter teaspoon baking powder

dash of tumeric

teaspoon vinegar

mix ingredients together with water or beer, and make a thick batter. The batter wants to be of the consistency, that it coats your finger, but the excess will run off.

Coat the fish with the batter and deep fry.

A little tip for frying your fish. If you don't want to mess your fryer, get a deep pan, and put in enough oil for frying in, and use a veg spoon to retrieve the cooked fish from the pan.

When you lower the battered fish into the oil, lower into the oil while keeping hold of the very last bit, after about five or ten seconds, you can let go, and the fish wont get stuck to the bottom of the pan, when the fish is golden brown, and floating at the top of the hot oil, it will be done.

Serve with chips (fries) and maybe a side salad.

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(Although this post is about fish, you can actually do this one with strips of chicken, beef, or even pork, and serve with noodles and chilli or sweet n sour sauce)

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If you just fancy a nice piece of fish, nothing fancy, no sauces, just a side salad, the easiest way is to just pan fry.

Take a nice thick piece of salmon, or red snapper, or even cod. Wash off in cold water, squeeze a half lemon, or lime over the fish, season with salt, pepper and a drizzle of olive oil.

The citric acid in the lemon juice will start the cooking process in the fish by bonding with the nitrogen compounds in the flesh, and reducing fishy odours during cooking.

Put about a dessert spoon of olive oil in a frying pan with a large knob of butter. Medium heat until the butter starts to foam and place the piece of fish skin side down in the pan. This will stop the fish from falling apart in the pan. When one side is done, carefully turn and cook the underside. When cooked, allow to drain on a warm plate for a moment, then plate and serve.

Serve with salad, or dauphinoise potatoes and petit pois

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Another successful cooking method for fish is en papillote or dans le colis simply means, in parcel or in the package. It is simply the method of steaming fish in a parcel in the oven. You take a piece of fish, place on a sheet of tin foil or baking paper (I prefer tin foil, it easoer to work with) or if your doing malaysian otak, you'll need a banana leaf. you then need a knob of butter, slice of lemon and black pepper, wrap it all up in a parcel, and cook in a halogen cooker  or oven for about 30-40mins.

This method is not only easy, but you can cook so many things this way, and all of the flavours are locked in. You can do Chinese, Thai, Japanese. You can do fish, pork, chicken, seafood, etc.

One that really works well here is a seafood medley. You can do this plain, spicy, chillied, or lightly with lemongrass or aparagus.

Take a nice piece of sturdy fish, such as a lovely cod steak and cut it into 3 or 4 thick slices, and place evenly on the tin foil. Melt a little butter in a dish, and coat some seafood of your choice, I use small atlantic prawns, tiger prawns, a thinly sliced scallop, a couple of shelled langoustine, and maybe a couple of scampi.

Squeeze half a lemon over the collective, and lay a couple of strands of chives or lemongrass (some chilli flakes if you'd like). Season with sea salt and black pepper and a drizzle of white wine over the top.

Wrap the tin foil by bringing the lower and upper edge together then fold the other two edges over, make sure you fold a couple of times to make such everything is sealed. Cook in the over for 20 or 30 minutes.

Serve with new potatoes and green beans, or beansprouts and thai noodles.

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Ok, one last one before I go. You have had a go at most of these, and have got bits of frozen fish or a quarter bag of prawns left, what to do with them. Tupperware container, and leave them at the bottom of the freezer until defrosting time? No, No, No!

Chop an onion, any spring onions left over, any chilli's or bits of veg, leeks, carrots, maybe pea's. Cook them off ready to go. Left over seafood, defrost in cold water if frozen, cook them off in the wok, when nearly done, add the left over veg, and dump a jar of curry sauce over the top. Fish curry is lovely with a garlic n coriander nan bread and a few poppadums. Whats left will last three days in the fridge or three months in the freezer.

Just dont freeze the poppadums, ok

Until next time, ta ta!