Fish is the dish

How many of you go to a museum and see a Dodo and think, how did we manage to kill all of these? Every time I go to Kelvingrove Museum I see the Great Auk, an example from closer to home of hunting to extinction. How would you feel if your grandchildren were seeing Cod and Wild Salmon in museums and asking the same question of you? Overly dramatic? Maybe, time will tell. So if you can't relate to that I'll ask another. How important to you is the food that you give your children? Should it be healthy, nutritious, tasty and sustainable or just convenient? How about if it was both?

Plating up mussels

Enough questions for the moment. In The Cookery School in Glasgow eighteen of us assembled at the invite of Fish is the Dish for a morning taking the fear and complexity out of cooking fish. I suspect there was a broad range of ability and experience with seafood in the room. Ahead of us was three hours of entertaining expert guidance on shellfish, smoked fish and white fish from Danny, the cookschool chef and budding comedian.

Moules mariniere

Mussels seem to strike fear into the heart of many people. There seems to be a belief that every mussel has a potentially lethal dose of food poisoning lurking inside and that the least you can expect is an hourly trip with the refrigerated toilet roll. What there actually is inside is a wonderful flavour of the sea which is sustainable, cheap and nutritious. Cheap? Well at around £3 per kilo I'd say so. But what to do with them? These rope grown mussels were clean, tidy, sand free so we were shown how to de-beard, check that they're still alive (if you don't know how it died then the bathroom sink is inevitable) by tapping on the bench. So with dead and broken discarded Danny set to demonstrating Moules mariniere and I learnt a lot here. How to make a beurre manie for thickening with flour and butter. To put the garlic, onions and wine into the hot pot at the same time as the mussels. Really? Not to say I've been doing it wrong all these years but these ones tasted better when plated up five minutes later. So who's going to take 5 minutes to make the family a healthy meal?


Next up was our turn to cook. Kedgeree for breakfast! I've made this many times, flooded with curry powder and quite overpoweringly bitter at times. The way we cooked it here was fragrant simplicity and if you don't believe it for breakfast then try this. I've copied the recipe directly for you, I hope Fish is the Dish don't mind me sharing it here, just make sure the haddock you use is sustainably sourced, ask your fishmonger.

My kedgeree

Kedgeree for 4 people
450g undyed smoked haddock (ours was peat smoked)
25g butter
1 onion finely chopped
2 cardamon pods split
1/4 tsp turmeric
1 inch cinnamon stock
350g basmati rice
600ml water
2 hard boiled eggs

Poach the fish in boiling water for 5 minutes until it starts to 'milk' (white spots of salt) and rises from the bottom of the pan. Remove the fish from the water and save the water in a jug, this is your stock. In the same pot melt the butter and fry the onion for around 3 minutes until softened then add the spices, cooking for 3 more minutes to release their oils. Add the rice and stock, bring to the boil and then reduce the heat. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, if you need to add more water then do so. When cooked flake in the haddock, stir and serve with the boiled egg on top to garnish.

Very simple but wonderfully tasty. No need for the overpowering curry flavours like fenugreek here.

So after our breakfast we went onto Coley Goujons. This for me was the highlight of the day. I am as guilty as anyone of stuffing fish fingers and smiley faces into the oven for the children. I work full time, have two small children and frequently it's tag team parenting with Mrs. T as we both juggle work and family life. Fish fingers are just easy aren't they? Well in ten minutes yesterday I made a batch of them for the freezer after this demonstration with no Uncle Albert lookalike in sight.

Three bowls. Simple

My coley goujons

Coley is a hugely tasty and readily available white fish. Just as good as cod or haddock in my mind and far more sustainable. Aside from this I know exactly what kind of fish has gone into my goujons as I picked it myself so I know it was fresh. But how do you make them without a mushy mess of soggy bread and half naked fish that the kids look at with a 'these aren't fish fingers' incredulity as you wash welded goo from your hands? Danny taught us the secret of double pannying (no idea how to spell it but it sounded something like that) with the 'wet hand dry hand' technique. It's quite simple really when you know how. One bowl of flour, one of whisked egg and one of breadcrumbs (or oatmeal, cream crackers or similar). Cut the fish into thing equal sized slices, dip in the flour and shake off excess with the dry hand. Place in egg wash and coat with wet hand, dip into breadcrumbs and cover with dry hand. Now the clever bits. Place in the egg again and recoat and then back in the breadcrumbs. Place on the board and roll it under your fingers. This will give you a goujon shape and keep the breadcrumb coating intact. Genius is so frequently simple. Then simply give a quick drizzle of oil and place in an oven at 200C for 5-7 minutes until cooked. Making several batches cuts down on mess and waste and allows you to freeze them ready for the evening freezer foray for convenience food. Although  can't help with the smiley faces...

So that was three hours, three dishes and all delicious. It was wonderful to see so many children there too learning how to cook these dishes and the value of fresh fish. Whenever they come to your area I'd really recommend. Just follow @fishisthedish on Twitter or look up www.fishisthedish.co.uk