‘Amazingly crisp’: Rick Stein’s secret to convincing people to eat (and cook) more fish

You may notice that there are more than a couple of recipes for breadcrumbed fish in my new book, Rick Stein’s Food Stories. One of my life purposes is to persuade people to eat more fish and I finally realised that everybody loves fish coated in breadcrumbs, particularly if those breadcrumbs are the Japanese, very dry-roasted panko sort, which give such an amazingly crisp finish. Hence, you’ll find my recipe for fish finger sandwiches, among others.

Of course, the ideal accompaniment to breadcrumbed and fried fish is tartare sauce and I’m very proud of the one we serve in our fish and chip shops. Unlike the vinegary white slush that is often sold as tartare sauce, mine is made with olives, capers, gherkins, parsley and proper mayonnaise. You’ll find my recipe here, along with other fish classics such as John dory, and fish pie.

Fish finger sandwiches

Good white bread is the best thing to use in these sandwiches, made even better with home-made, rather than shop-bought, fish fingers.

Ingredients

• 500g thick white fish fillets such as blue-eye or ling, skinned
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 large egg, beaten
• about 70g panko breadcrumbs
• 3-4 tbsp vegetable or sunflower oil
• lemon juice
• salt and black pepper

Tartare sauce

• 300ml mustard mayonnaise – see note
• 2 tsp finely chopped green olives
• 2 tsp finely chopped gherkins
• 2 tsp finely chopped capers
• 2 tsp finely chopped parsley
• 2 tsp finely chopped chives

To serve

• 8 slices of white bread, buttered
• lettuce leaves

Method

1. Cut the fish into 2cm strips and season them with salt and pepper. Dust the strips with flour, then dip them in beaten egg and roll in panko breadcrumbs. Set aside.
2. To make the tartare sauce, combine the ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan and cook the fish fingers for 2 or 3 minutes on each side until crisp and golden. Sprinkle with a little salt and lemon juice, then assemble the sandwiches with lettuce and tartare sauce.

Serves 4

Note: You can either use store-bought mustard mayonnaise or add 1 tablespoon of made-up English mustard into 280ml of mayonnaise.

Pan-fried John dory with beer, bacon and lettuce

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with craft ale. I’m of a generation that prefers delicate English hops to the enormous power of American ones. But when it comes to using beer in a sauce for fish, the extra fragrance of American hops makes all the difference. I’m very fond of this simple treatment for a great fish like John dory, which is perfectly complemented by the bitterness of the beer and the smokiness of the bacon.

Ingredients

• 4 x 175g fillets of John dory or gurnard, skin on
• 50g butter, melted
• 750g cos lettuce, shredded
• 75g rindless smoked streaky bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, finely chopped or grated
• 300ml good chicken stock
• 300ml pale ale
• 2 tbsp sunflower oil
• small handful of parsley, chopped
• salt and black pepper

Method

1. Place the fish fillets on a plate and sprinkle them generously with salt. Leave them for about 15-20 minutes, then rinse off the salt and pat the fish dry with kitchen paper. Brush the fish with a little of the butter and season with pepper, then set aside.
2. Heat some of the butter in a frying pan, add the bacon and fry until golden and crisp. Add the remaining butter and gently fry the onion and garlic for 5 minutes until softened. Add the chicken stock and beer to the pan and cook over high heat until the liquid has reduced by three-quarters. Turn the heat down as much as possible, cover the pan and leave the sauce over the low heat while you cook the fish.
3. In a separate pan heat the oil over medium heat and cook the fish, skin-side down, for about 6-7 minutes until the skin is crisp and the fish is opaque.
4. Stir the lettuce into the sauce and allow it to wilt, then stir in the chopped parsley and season, if needed, with salt and pepper. Divide the lettuce and bacon between 4 plates, top with a piece of fish and spoon the sauce around. Serve immediately.

Serves 4

Classic fish pie

The older I get, the keener I am to keep ingredients out of recipes instead of adding them. This is as simple a recipe for fish pie as you can imagine, but if the fish is good (and that includes the smoked fish, which must be of the best quality), there is no better fish dish in the world than a classic British fish pie –with boiled eggs and parsley, of course. I know some people don’t like boiled eggs in their pie, so, by all means, leave them out. You can make this recipe easier by topping the pie with bought puff pastry instead of mash.

Ingredients

• 1 small onion, thickly sliced
• 2 cloves
• 1 bay leaf
• 600ml whole milk
• 300ml double cream
• 450g firm white fish fillets such as blue-eye, ling or snapper
• 225g undyed smoked haddock or hoki fillet
• 4 eggs
• 100g butter
• 45g plain flour
• handful of curly parsley, chopped
• freshly grated nutmeg
• 1.25kg floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or King Edward, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 egg yolk
• salt and freshly ground white pepper

Method

1. Stud a couple of onion slices with the cloves. Put the onion slices in a large pan with the bay leaf, 450ml of the milk, the cream, and fresh and smoked fish. Bring just to the boil, then simmer for 8 minutes.
2. Lift the fish out onto a plate, strain the cooking liquor into a jug and set it aside. When the fish is cool enough to handle, break it into large flakes, discarding the skin and bones. Sprinkle it over the base of a shallow 1.75 litre ovenproof dish.
3. Boil the eggs for just 8 minutes, then drain and leave to cool. Peel the eggs and cut them into chunky slices, then arrange on top of the fish.
4. Melt 50g of the butter in a pan, add the flour and cook for a minute. Take the pan off the heat and gradually stir in the reserved fish cooking liquor. Put the pan back on the heat and slowly bring to the boil, stirring all the time. Leave the sauce to simmer gently for 10 minutes to cook the flour. Remove from the heat, stir in the parsley and season with a grating of nutmeg, salt and white pepper. Pour the sauce over the fish and leave to cool, then place in the fridge to chill for an hour.
5. Boil the potatoes for 15-20 minutes. Drain them, then mash and add the rest of the butter and the egg yolk. Season with salt and white pepper, then beat in enough of the remaining milk to form a soft, spreadable mash.
6. Preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced (200C conventional). Spoon the potato over the filling and mark the surface with a fork. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until it’s piping hot and golden brown.

Serves 4

This is an edited extract from Rick Stein’s Food Stories by Rick Stein, published by BBC Books. Copyright © Rick Stein 2024. Photography © James Murphy 2024. RRP $59.99.