My exotic twist on fish & chips.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 800 g fish fillets: cod, haddock or any other white fish, salmon, or a mixture – skinned and pin-boned.
- Small bunch of spring onions (or 1 red onion)
- 1 tbsp Thai red curry paste
- 2 limes
- 1 tbsp fish sauce
- 1 red chili (optional)
- 900 g sweet potatoes
- Sunflower oil for frying
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- Handful of fresh coriander
Method
- Place the fish fillets in a food processor with 2/3 of the onions, the curry paste, coriander (stalks and all), chili (if using), fish sauce, the grated zest of a lime and the juice of half one. Blend until smooth. Even after blending, it’s worth mixing manually with a spoon to make sure the curry paste is evenly distributed throughout the mixture (it tends to stay in blobs).
- Take small handfuls of the fish paste and shape into patties. Cover with clingfilm and chill for at least an hour.
- Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and slice into chunky chips. Parboil in boiling water with salt and 2 tbsp of vinegar for about 5 minutes. They should be soft but still firm and not falling apart. Drain and steam dry.
- When the chips are dry, fry in sunflower oil at 180°C/350°F until golden and crisp.
- While the chips are frying, shallow fry the fish cakes in a little olive oil for about 8 minutes/side.
- When the sweet potato chips are done, drain them on kitchen paper and season with coarsely ground sea salt.
Garnish the fish cakes with lime wedges, coriander leaves and chopped spring onion and serve with the sweet potato fries, a nice crisp salad or pickled red cabbage and a dollop of Sriracha or lemon mayonnaise.
Suggested wine pairing
Serve with a nice chilled Tavel, if you like rosé, or else a dry but well-rounded white such as Viré Clessé.
As we say in Bristol, it’s gert lush!
Susan Turbie 