I remember when I was a kid, my first visit to the States was to Los Angeles to visit some family friends. They thought it would be fun to introduce the kids to McDonald's. I remember my mum being horrified since she was definitely not a fan of fast food and she had managed to keep her children far away from ever trying the golden arches. She decided to order for us the filet-o-fish, believing it would be the "healthiest" option. For week #51 of Steemit's sandwich contest created by @jaybird I was inspired to make a grown up version of a fish sandwich.
Ingredients
- sourdough seaweed rolls (sourdough starter, bread flour, yeast, salt, sugar, olive oil, egg, and seaweed)
- fried fish (cod, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, cracker crumbs, fresh dill, egg, and flour)
- balsamic mayonnaise (mayonnaise, roasted garlic, sautéed scallions, and balsamic vinegar)
- sautéed kale (Tuscan kale, olive oil, and salt)
- crispy kale (olive oil, Tuscan kale and salt)
I wanted to make a roll that was soft, yet sturdy enough to hold all the juices from the fish. I chose to make a sourdough and to tie the seafood theme I thought it would be fun to add some seaweed into the dough.
You can see the tiny specks of seaweed in the roll!
For the fish, I did not want to batter and deep fry it so I breaded the cod in cracker crumbs. I used Ritz crackers. This is also a great way to use up any stale crackers left in a box. I really like fresh dill with fish so I pulverized the crackers with the herbs. The cod was seasoned with salt, pepper and some smoked paprika before being coated in the crumb mixture.
Instead of classic tartar sauce, I made a super flavorful mayonnaise by mixing in some roasted garlic cloves, sautéed scallions and a generous splash of balsamic vinegar.
To assemble the sandwich, I added mayonnaise to the bottom half of the seaweed roll, then a mound of cooked kale and breaded fish. On the top half of the roll, I spread more mayonnaise because you can never have enough and it works as a glue to hold the crispy oven roasted kale.
The tricky part is to put the two halves together. The fish was juicy and permeated with the fresh flavor of dill. The richness of the mayonnaise, plus the tartness of the balsamic vinegar was perfect with the fish. The crispy kale added crunch to each bite.
Thank you @jaybird for another incredible week. Time to eat!