Greetings Gastronauts, this is Keef Cooks, I’m Keef, and today I’m going to do something
that you'll probably think is completely pointless.
I’m going to make fish fingers from scratch, oh yes.
[ MUSIC ]
A couple of shoutouts before we start.
One to my new patron, Kajsa Silk - I hope I pronounced that right, it's a Swedish name.
And one to Hazel B who actually requested this back in June 2019.
So it's only taken nearly three years to get there Hazel, but we're doing it, yes!
Fish fingers or fish sticks were made massively popular after the second world war by a fella
called Clarence Birdseye, would you believe.
Yes.
And the idea was to make fish easy to consume, which it certainly did.
You don't have to skin it, scale it, gut it, fillet it or anything like that.
So they're massively convenient things but they can contain some dodgy stuff. And this
is why you might want to consider making your own because you'll know exactly what's gone into it.
If you enjoy this video, give it a like, share, subscribe, become a patron etc.
And let's get on with it fish fingers from scratch!
Now if you're doing fish fingers from scratch you've got to make your own bread crumbs as
well haven't you? Oh yes. So I’ve got three slices of fluffy white bread that I’ve left
out for a day or two to dry them out and make them stale.
And hopefully I can grate them. We'll see.
[ NOISY GRATING MACHINE ]
I know you can buy breadcrumbs but I do dislike doing it because it's such a trivial inexpensive
thing. And to pay for the, y’know, the machinery and the packaging…
and the labour that's going into putting them on the supermarket shelf it's just, well,
it's a bit insane really. There you go.
[ LOUD GRATING NOISE ]
[ DREAMY ATMOSPHERIC MUSIC ]
So I passed the grated crumbs through this spider and there's some large chunks that
won't go through.
And it's not the end of the world - I’m not going to try and make those smaller, I’ve
got plenty there.
Breadcrumbs.
Grated Parmesan.
Smoked paprika.
This is to give it a bit of flavour and colour.
Oh possibly not that much.
But y’know, fish fingers are always pretty much bright orange.
And some pepper and some salt.
[ GURNING LIKE A LOON ]
And give it a right good stir.
Now the fish in standard fish fingers or fish sticks is usually, well almost always, white.
You can get salmon versions but I just think that's wrong. Salmon is a an oily fish and
basically what you want is not an oily fish.
You want a normal white fish like cod, haddock, pollock, tilapia or basically whatever you
can get where you live.
I tried to - I want to make something that actually looks like Bird's Eye fish fingers
- or y’know somebody else's fish fingers.
And so the size is - well I thought the size would be standard, but it turns out it isn't.
There's a specification you can find online which isn't very specific.
It says they have to weigh between 20 and 50 grams each, they've got to be more than
three times longer than they are wide, and they've got to have a minimum width of 10
millimetres.
So yeah, under half an inch.
And that's it as far as dimensions go.
And usually - almost always - they're coated in breadcrumbs, but sometimes they are coated
in batter.
So I got some frozen cod fillets and they were kind of unequal sizes and I did this
yesterday and I didn't film it sorry.
I used good old meat glue – transglutaminase - to stick the bits together so that I’ve
got these two blocks of cod that are a more or less uniform thickness and more than 10 millimetres.
In fact that's 20, 21.
So is that one so yeah big chunky fish fingers coming up.
The meat glue - I’m not saying that manufacturers use this although I think they probably do.
But I’ve seen programs about the making of fish fingers where fish fillets are compressed
into a box of standard size and frozen.
And throughout the entire process of being cut to size and enrobed in egg and breadcrumbs
and then flash fried and frozen and packaged…
they're frozen all the way through.
I’m not going to do that because the fish has already been frozen so I don't really
want to freeze it again.
But what I will do is cut it up.
Right this one is just over 10 centimetres long and it's tapered a bit.
I’ve cut one - cut a bit off that edge and I’ll cut a bit off this edge.
[ SILENT CUTTING ]
And then cut it in half so that is 55 mm.
Beautiful. There you go - so you can see the join where I glued two fillets together.
This meat glue - it doesn't taste of anything - it's perfectly harmless.
It's just an enzyme that basically dissolves enzymes in the flesh of meat or fish and enables
them to mix together and to stick together.
Honest. It's good stuff. Sometimes.
Unless you're trying to pass off, y’know, that as a bit of prime cod - it isn't.
Okay let's do this one as well.
This one's a bit shorter - this is nine centimetres long.
All right, there we are, five seriously chunky fish fingers and some scraps which I’ll
freeze and use in something else possibly another fish finger.
Right what we need to do now is set up a production line.
You need a plate or a bowl with flour in it.
You need a beaten egg.
And you need your breadcrumbs.
Usually when I’m doing this I end up with great big clumps of breadcrumbs on my fingertips and I don't like it.
So this time I’m trying to avoid really touching it with me fingers.
See how that goes.
Goes pretty well, I think.
Now if you're a proper Gastronaut, you'll know that I’m not averse to deep frying
or shallow frying stuff.
That's probably what I would normally do, but just as a general sort of token nod to
healthy food, I’m going to oven bake it.
Yes I am.
And I’ve got some oven chips.
Thank you.
Right so I’ll just squirt my fish fingers with a bit of squirty oil - do it on both sides.
Now you want to heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius if it's a convection oven/fan oven,
That's 200 for a conventional one, gas 5.
I’m going to put those in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes and I’ll turn them over halfway
through and give the chips a stir as well.
Now you might want some sauce to go with your fish fingers and a good one is sauce tartare
or tartar sauce so I’m just going to make that up quickly - just a simple one.
So I’ve got a good dollop of mayonnaise.
[ CHOP CHOP ]
I’m going to finely chop half of this onion and some mini-gherkins – cornichons.
[ CHOP CHOP ]
I would have liked to use some capers to replace half of these but I haven't got any, amazingly.
There was a stage where I had about five jars open in the fridge but I guess I’ve finally
used them all up so I have no more.
[ QUIET CHOPPIN ]
So we'll mix these in with the mayonnaise - little squirt of lemon, and a little sprinkle of dill.
Just mix them together…
A wee tasty.
Very nice.
[ COFFIN AN SPLUTTRIN ]
[ CACKLIN AN GIGGLIN ]
"Do you wanna cough somewhere else?"
“And now, it's taste test time with Mrs Keef Cooks!”
[ CHEERIN ]
"Are you all right?" "Yeah, I think I inhaled half a chip."
"Or something. Anyway, dinner dinner." "Do not try this at home."
"Oh err. They're rather splendid aren't they?" "Yeah...you don't like vinegar do you?"
[ LAFFIN ]
"Don't inhale." "Made that for ya."
"Ah bless." "Mm hmm."
"Sauce, sauce, burble, burble." "Tartare sauce?"
"Breathe..."
"Right then..." "Mmm."
"Larger than your average fish finger." "I think they grew when they were cooked."
"All right?" "Yeah."
"I must admit I absolutely love battered fish on a Friday. Keef makes a fabulous batter and..."
"I just think that combination of crunch and the moisture of the fish is marvellous but this..."
"is nice. I like it's... it's proper breadcrumbs isn't it it's not just sort of coating."
"Proper homemade, made out of bread."
"Is it much faff to make the breadcrumbs?" "No."
"In that case guys, try it at home honestly."
"Oh this is really nice I can't usually get enthusiastic about fish fingers."
"I mean the whole point with fish fingers is convenience - these are great and very convenient for me."
"Okay, that's the winner with the missus. Winner winner, fish finger dinner."
"Okay, yeah, very good. Right thanks for watching and see you next time."
[ MUSIC ]