Homemade Fish Fingers

It is the first day of the Easter Holidays and it has been pleasantly leisurely. Baby Boy went to nursery in the morning and Sprout, Princess and I went to the supermarket. Supermarket trips with the kids are rare and so almost a treat for the kids. I attached a wheelchair shopping trolley to Princess' wheelchair and Sprout pretended to scoot it along the aisles.

We do try to buy most of our fresh food from the local shops, aside from an organic veg box delivery, but I do like to pick up sustainable fish from the supermarket when I do see it. So tonight's tea for the kids was homemade fish fingers made from pollock and homemade tartare sauce. The crunchy fish fingers and tartare were a success, particulary with Princess who is not great with solid food, although the new potatoes and peas were less so.

For the crunchy fish fingers

- pollock or any fish fillets

- plain flour

- One egg

- breadcrumbs*

- pepper & salt

- oil for frying

For the tartare sauce

- 1 large gherkin per person

- 1 tsp capers per person

- 2 tbsp mayonnaise per person

1. Start by making the tartare to give it time to marinade. Finely chop the gherkins and capers by hand or in a mini food processor. Put into a bowl and add mayonnaise until it looks about the right consistency.
2. Either keep the fish as whole fillets or cut to more of a fish finger size or even finger sized to make extra crunchy fish sticks for little hands.
3. Find three shallow dishes big enough to lie the fish pieces in one at a time. Fill one with a one 1cm layer of seasoned flour, another with the beaten egg, and another with 2cm or so of breadcrumbs.
4. Roll the fish pieces or pat the fillets in the flour, shake off excess then roll in the beaten egg and shake off the excess again, then roll in the breadcrumbs patting on a good coating. These can be left in the fridge until ready to cook.
5. Heat the oil in a frying pan with a medium heat until shimmering. Lay the breadcrumbed fish in away from you so not to splash oil onto yourself. Fry gently for 2-3 minutes until the breadcrumbs start to brown, turn and fry for another 2-3 minutes.

*After the success of these fish finger (and chicken nuggets) we keep a bag of breadcrumbs in the freezer made after seeing a Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall recipe. From memory, simply collect all your old bread crusts, Hugh recommended in the freezer but ours seemed fine in the bread bin. Bread into smallish hunks and dry out on a low heat in the oven. Blitz in a food processor and then store in a airtight container - or freezer if your other half forgets to read the recipe and does so anyway.