What makes this middle-eastern, rather than simply upper-class fish fingers? It’s the sumac, cast over the surface of the garlic-full sauce.
Serve this with a crisp green salad. You’ll find a selection to choose from here. A particularly good one is this celery, mozzarella and pesto salad.
Of course, if you have any leftovers, you can use them to make a fish finger sandwich!
Middle-eastern cod goujons with a slurpy garlic dip
This will make about 24-30 depending of the size of the fish strips.
Serves – 5
Ingredients
- 500g/1 lb 2 oz skinless cod fillets
- 100g/1⅔ cups panko breadcrumbs
- 2 tbsps grated parmesan
- 3 tbsps chopped chives – a small handful
- 6 tbsps plain flour
- 2 eggs
- 4 tbsps milk
- Vegetable oil for shallow frying
- Smoked salt, Urfa pepper flakes
- 4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed with ½ tsp smoked salt
- 2 lemons
- ½ cup of yoghurt
- ½ cup mayonnaise (I use Dr Wills…click here to find out why)
- A pinch of sumac
- A dusting of Spanish sweet smoked paprika
Instructions
- First make the garlic dip. Mix the salted garlic with the yoghurt and mayonnaise, and add the juice and zest of half one of the lemons if they are large or medium, or the whole lemon if they are small. Mix, and dust with sumac.
- Make lemon wedges with the remaining lemon.
- In a smallish frying pan, pour enough vegetable oil to shallow fry (it will be about 2cm/½” deep), get it hot.
- Meanwhile put the breadcrumbs and Parmesan into a shallow bowl (a soup plate is ideal) and mix. Snip in the chives, and add the dusting of paprika. Place the bowl on the worktop, beside the frying pan.
- Mix the eggs with the milk in a shallow bowl. Put this beside the breadcrumbs.
- Put the flour in a third bowl and season. Place beside the beaten eggs.
- Cut the fish into strips, thick enough that they will stay together. Leave on a chopping board, furthest away from the frying pan.
- Find a platter and cover it with kitchen paper, place behind the breadcrumbs.
- When the oil is just beginning to smoke, take a piece of fish, dip it in the flour, shake, dip in the egg, put into the breadcrumbs, roll to coat and drop into the hot oil. Repeat until there isn’t much space in the frying pan. Turn the first piece of fish, repeat. Take the first piece of fish out, and put it on the plate with the kitchen paper. Repeat. Continue until all the fish is done.
- This will keep warm for a few minutes, but the sooner you serve it, together with the sauce and a crisp green salad, the better.