I must warn you, my reason behind making fish fingers this week isn’t particularly thrilling. I wish I could recount some whimsical, nostalgic tale… or discuss Doctor Who serving them with custard …even explain that I needed comfort food for some sob story or another. The truth is much less exciting. Basically I found the end of a loaf of rather nice black olive bread (which I had left in it’s bag on the kitchen table for a couple of days) and although still perfectly edible, it had become so stale that if thrown, it could probably smash through a brick wall! I hate chucking things away so I thought I’ll make breadcrumbs and that led to FISH FINGERS and here we are. I have decided to share it because it actually turned out to be a lovely, healthy meal made from mostly store-cupboard regulars. The salty capers and gherkins in the sauce plus the lemon juice on the pea salad mean’t that the whole dish is packed with so much flavour I don’t think the dish needs extra salt or butter in the mash – give it a whirl let me know what you think.

Fish Finger Dinner

Serves 2
Ingredients

For the Fish Fingers
2 Fillets of fish (I used salmon)
Approx 50g of stale bread
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon of vegetable oil

2 sweet potatoes, peeled
2 handfuls of frozen peas
few sprigs of fresh mint
juice of half a lemon
Olive oil

Sauce
5-6 small radishes
2-3 mini gherkins
1 teaspoon of capers
1/2 teaspoon of djion mustard
1 tablespoon of Greek Yoghurt

Method

Start by making the sauce. I must add that I was tempted to call this Tartare Sauce but with so few ingredients in common with the traditional I was worried about getting slammed with the trades descriptions act. It is a bit like tartare sauce…but not really…it does go bloomin’ well with the fish fingers though, honest!
1) Finely dice the radishes, gherkins and capers.

2) Add the mustard and yoghurt to the chopped ingredients and stir well.
3) Pop into the fridge until needed.
4) Next, chop the sweet potatoes into chunks and put into a pan of boiling water. Let boil for 20 minutes whilst you prepare the fish.
5) Cut each fish fillet into thick strips – for the fillets I used I just had to snip them in half with scissors but you could cut them into three if yours are bigger.
6) Put the stale bread into a food processor and blitz to make breadcrumbs. If you don’t have a food processor you can use a grater but it will take ages if the bread is as stale as mine was.
7) Dip the pieces of fish into the flour, then into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs. If there are still breadcrumbs left in the bowl after the first dip, pop the fish back into the egg and then in the breadcrumbs again to get them all used up.
8) Place the fish fingers on a baking tray greased with a teaspoon of vegetable oil and put into an oven preheated to 180°C for 15 – 20 minutes or until the fish is cooked through. 
9) When the fish is nearly ready put the frozen peas into a large heatproof bowl and cover with boiling water, leave to stand until defrosted (around 5 minutes).
10) Drain the peas and add the lemon juice, chopped mint and a splash of olive oil, mix well.
11) To serve, drain and mash the sweet potato and serve alongside the fish, pea salad and the sauce.

What leftovers inspired you this week? Or are you feeling uninspired by your store-cupboard ingredients? Send me a message and I could write a recipe just for you xx