Thursday, May 28, 2009

Craving Ellie in My Belly - Crispy Fish Fingers

After this week's browniepalooza, a little light eating was definitely in order. That's one of the reasons I love being part of Craving Ellie in My Belly. We're cooking and blogging through Ellie Krieger's book The Foods You Crave.

Our host this week was Anne of Rainforest Recipes. Anne blogs from the jungles of Guatemala! How cool is that? First off, I had a fit of giggles over the term fish fingers. I don't know what made me think "Fish don't have fingers!", but after I did, I was giggling off and on.

This recipe is one that isn't in the book but you can find it on the Food Network site here. I was excited about this one as I love fried food but it doesn't love me. I used half a pound of halibut for the fish fingers but made the sauce recipe as written.


Because I used an extra sturdy whole grain bread, the crumbs were pretty large, and took a while to crisp up. The larger crumb size was a disadvantage in the breading process as the fish fingers (giggle) ended up with little bald spots where the crumb coating didn't adhere to the egg coating. I took Sara's suggestion (inspired by Aggie) and baked them on a rack. I had a fleeting thought that perhaps I should spray the rack with cooking spray, but I decided if it baked onto the rack, I didn't want to have to deal with getting it off. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The Fleeting Thought is a close relation of the Little Voice that whispers to you when you're tempted not to strain custards. Honor the Fleeting Thought, or be punished. Witness my punishment...


This recipe was pretty simple to assemble. I baked my fish fingers about an hour before we ended up having dinner, and they don't taste better when they cool off. My suggestion is to make them right before you serve them. The dipping sauce was good, but next time I would nix the Worcestershire and add maple syrup or honey. Quite honestly, I think the sauce suffered from using fresh from Paris unpasteurized Maille mustard, which is MUCH more potent than the stuff I'm used to from Trader Joe's. That was my bad and was in no way a reflection on the recipe.

All in all, we liked these. Next time I think I would nix the bread crumbs in favor of panko (check out Anne's post, she did some of the bread crumbs and some with panko), and I would play around with the sauce.

Many thanks to Anne for picking such a good and healthy recipe for us this week. Check back next week when the CEiMBs make Ellie's White Gazpacho.

11 comments:

Craving Ellie in My Belly said...

Oh no, baking rack carnage! These definitely have to be eaten straight out of the oven, I let mine cool off a bit too and they lost some of their crunch.

Craving Ellie in My Belly said...

I also found the term "fish fingers" to be amusing. Sara said she thinks this is due to it sounding much more pleasant than "fish sticks" and so we went with that.

--Nick

Aggie said...

Oh bummer about the sticky rack! My rack is nonstick for some reason so I never have to spray it...

Your plate looks great!

What's for Supper? said...

Well...yours certainly look good.

AJM said...

The Fleeting Thought!!! I ignore those all the type, and then live to regret it:) Glad these turned out well for you other than the crusty baking rack!

Unknown said...

These look really fun! I wonder if I could make them with other kinds of fish. We always have tilapia on hand.

TourGuideJenn said...

I'm glad I didn't read your post first, or I'd be giggling through all the other posts thinking "fish don't have fingers." Thanks for the imagery.

Other than the small problem with the rack, these look great.

Peggy said...

I opted for not using a rack because I didn't want to clean it! I just turned mine while they were baking and they turned out ok. And I kept calling mine fish "sticks" for some reason. Fingers just didn't stick with me! :)

Spike said...

oh no, I hate it when things stick! But the fish sticks sound amazing- nothing like the scary frozen ones

Anonymous said...

They sound like they would be delicious!

NKP said...

I have had the very same sticking problem with homemade fish fingers. Love that you guys are doing a healthier meals group.