Be Nice to Fish Week

Saturday, November 8, 2008
By Old Boar

haddock from Dalyan SeafoodBe nice to fish? What is he on now? Or is this yet another one of those strange promotional ideas that we haven’t come across before? Actually, it is none of those. This is sort of inspired by watching the American elections. I was amazed how many people on the fringes seemed to be so intent on destroying the planet. Mostly Palin, it seemed. Then that made me think of Michael Palin (no relation) the travel raconteur and former Python. And for some reason, he reminds me of Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall of River Cottage fame and the chicken out campaign. And that eventually got me on to fish.

Okay, not the most logical route, but a nice destination, I think you would agree.

Now, this is not about saving the fish, there are lots of people doing that. This is about being nice to the dead one that you are about to rush out and buy from the nearest fish monger. I have to say at this point that you should really find a proper fish monger rather than pay lip service to the supermarket variety. However, there is a very good chance that your only hope of buying fresh (ish) fish IS from a supermarket – so I forgive you in advance.

This little caper is about any white fish. Lets go for Haddock – unsmoked, nice big slab, hopefully still pretty firm and fresh. Haddock, as fish go, is a bit of a sponge. It is why it smokes so well. However, it also steams rather well, so lets go steam it!

The trick with white fish like cod and haddock is not to put it in a position where it will disintegrate. That is fine for a fish pie, but sometimes having it in one lump is the thing. It is probably why they are popular entombed in batter – it holds them together. But this need not be the case all the time. In our little experiment, we are going to let some leaves do the hard work.

First, lets get some ingredients together:

  • Nice large portions of haddock fillets for each person
  • Chinese lettuce
  • Coriander leaf. chopped
  • Lime Leaves (soaked if not fresh)
  • Fresh grated Ginger
  • lots of crushed garlic
  • Sichuan Pepper
  • Light Soy Sauce
  • Sesame oil
  • Large sheets of Rice Paper
First of all, you need to soak the rice paper to soften it. Lie it in a shallow dish covered with water.
Now, we need to skin our fish fillets (if they are not yet skinned). Lay them flat and skin side down on a large board (for goodness sake, invest in a BIG acetate chopping board for your meat and fish – saves a lot of mess). Get your big cooks knife and holding onto the small tail end of the fillet, slide the sharp knife between the fish and skin, keeping the knife flat against the board. It should cut the fillet straight off the skin in one go. Chop them into nice size chunks that will easily be wrapped in the rice paper.
Take a piece of the lettuce leaf and cut it to the same size as your fish chunk and lay the fish on it. Coat the fillet with the ginger, garlic and a light sprinkling of ground sichuan pepper. Now cover with soaked lime leaves and coriander, and sprinkle with soy sauce. Take the softened rice paper, and wrap up your fish and lettuce with one or more sheets to make a neat parcel. Brush with sesame seed oil and set aside. You may need to experiment with the parcels – I tied mine up with thin strips of pandanus|pandan leaves last time
Once they are all done, take a large Chinese steamer and lay in the bottom a sheet of cooking foil. With a sharp knife or skewer, pierce the foil all over so it is full of holes. Now, cover the foil with more of the Chinese lettuce leaves. Lay your fish parcels on top and put the lid on. Place the steamer over fiercely boiling water and steam for 10 to 15 minutes – this depends a little on the thickness of the fish.
Remove teh parcels from the steamer, discarding the now wilted leaves, and serve with a small portion of simply boiled fragrant rice. I like to drizzle some chili oil over mine.
There you go – one piece of haddock treated very nicely indeed! Kind and yummy all at the same time.

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Related posts:

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  2. Smoked Haddock Pie
  3. Marriotts Fish Bar
  4. Oh, but I Love Porchetta!
  5. Piri Piri Chicken

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 at 1:47 am and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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