Fishfinger Sandwich

"Instagram? It's just people taking pictures of their tea!"

I occasionally Instagram my dinner. It’s a recreational thing. But last night Insta went weird and wouldn’t let me post text, so I’m sticking the full-length version here.

I’m tout seul this evening so obviously an opportunity to enjoy things that might otherwise be frowned upon.

The fishfinger sandwich is one such.

It’s one of those things that everyone has a ‘take’ on - 90% of which are utter, pointless bollocks. It’s a sandwich. Made with fishfingers. It’s not supposed to be zhuzhed, improved or pimped. It should not be made elegant or ironic. The more original naffness you can preserve, the better it’s going to taste.

That said.

I have opinions.

Don’t make your own sodding fishsticks! What are you? Mad? And don’t buy Waitrose premium organic cod batons either. If they fanny with the basic physical proportions of a fishfinger, making it ‘chunkier’ or otherwise more artisanal, they mess with the physics. A chip has a ratio of exterior crunch to steamed soft interior. If you make a chip thinner, you get more ‘case’ and less filling. If you go large, you have to do absurd things like ‘triple cooking’ to get that huge mass of centre cooked before the crust overcooks. There is only one size for a chip: 8mm. This was handed down by God and if you have questions I suggest you consult a priest.

Bird’s Eye. Cod or haddock. Their proportion of crumb to flesh is ideal. They cook from frozen.

The bread needs to be ordinary. Sourdough completely doesn’t work. If you happen to have access to a phenomenal bakery, go for the simplest they’ve got (@fitzbillies standard bap in my case).

Of course you can make your own tartare! It’ll be lovely. But remember to keep some properly populist flavours in there. I make mine with 50% salad cream, 50% Hellman’s. I will not be taking questions. If you genuinely are a diagnosed, certified irredeemable hipster, you could use Kewpie... but only because the rest of us are entirely aware that it’s just Japanese salad cream. Of course we’re judging you.

You can have lettuce. Just not much.

Cook the fishfingers (3 per person) in a dry skillet. There’s loads of shortening in the crumb so at 175ºc the crust crisps and browns without extra help. At that temperature, if you’ve gone from frozen, the core will be perfect flaky steamed as the outside reaches the correct Pantone reference.

They spent millions on this. Making fingers taste good, even if they’re thrown at the pan by a stoned student. Use that technology to your advantage. I tried frying them in clarified butter once and ended up with lumpy fishbutter.

You could, at least theoretically, do this with frozen cod portions in batter but it’s an entirely different proposition. If the idea of frozen cod in kid-friendly finger offends you, use the battered pieces to make fish tacos.

Your tartare should contain minced onion, extra Dijon, capers (rough chopped), cornichons (fine chopped), dill parsley and chives. Chervil or tarragon optional. No lemon juice or vinegar, just the stuff the cornichons came in.

Finally, eat half a bag of Scampi Fries then run a rolling pin over what’s left. Stir this stuff into the tartare, sprinkle over the fishfingers as you’re cooking them and then ‘strew’ the rest over the top of the tartare during assembly. Unfortunately fishfingers don’t crisp up quite as well as they used to back when they contained radioactive isotopes and Agent Orange. You need the Scampi Dust.

Dry toast the inside of the bun/bread.

The Gibson is Beefeater, direct, Brutto-style.

Pickled onions just want to be with fishfingers.

Nunc Dimittis