Fish is brain food, or so people say.
What could be better than a nice piece of fish, in a crispy crumb, baked to perfection? We got some line caught cod as a treat and I set about making a crunchy covering for it.
I started to think about what to do for the crispy crumb… breadcrumbs? Passe, my dear, so passe. Also, I have to admit, I didn’t have any bread to make crumbs from. So that ruled that out.
I did have cornmeal (polenta) and I did have a bag of crisps… well, Sunbites. They are wholemeal snacks that are crunchy and tasty. They would do. They would have to.
I crushed them, inside the bag, so they were roughly crumbed and mixed the bits with a couple of tablespoons of cornmeal and a teaspoon of salt.
On a plate, I roughly whisked, with a fork, a small egg and some milk.
I put an oven tray, with a silicon sheet on, into the oven and set the temperature to 180 degrees. The tray needs to be hot when you put the fish on it so the bottom gets cooked as well, without being too soggy.
Drying the cod – or at least, patting it dry with kitchen roll – means that when you dip it in the eggy milk mixture, it gets a good coating…
Which makes the crumb mixture stick to it. Put the fish onto the crumbs and pat them into the fish. It’s a bit sticky on the fingers but worth it, so don’t complain. I sprayed it with some oil spray so that the heat of the oven would crisp things up
Doesn’t that look good? And it isn’t even cooked yet. Get it onto that hot oven tray and into the oven.
15 to 20 minutes and it has crisped up to perfection. The fish flesh is brilliantly white and flakes perfectly.
I made some couscous flavoured with lemon zest and juice and some lemon and garlic mayonnaise to go with it
What a lovely mouthful……
There you go…. easy crispy coating made in seconds and twenty minutes in the oven and you have delicious fish… and crisps!
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