Fish & Chips!

I love fish and chips and it’s been ages since I made it at home. I mean, whats better than a nice big plate with fish, chips, minted peas and loads of tartare sauce! I used to make it fairly regularly, but it was something that almost fell off my radar. This week I suddenly had a craving for it. After a few terrible weeks I knew I needed to get my head back into it this morning, and having a meal like this, that feels a little naughty even though you know it isn't can really help keeping the motivation up. I find that having a fakeaway version of our favourite high calorie treats really helps remind me just how flexible and easy this plan is. There is no reason to feel deprived, or bored with the foods. 

I have to say that even though I haven’t made this in a while I am pretty sure this is the best I have ever done, so I am glad I was taking recipe notes the whole way along. It went down a treat with himself as well, in particular the tartare sauce – which I am counting as a major win as he usually doesn’t like my sauces that use greek yoghurt! It’s not the quickest dinner to throw together, but it is pretty easy so I think that makes up for it.

I used hake as it was what looked best in the shop on Saturday, but you can easily replace with cod or haddock and it won’t affect the smart points. I also served this with some sautéed baby leeks and asparagus, but I love as much veg as possible. You can leave this out, use any other veg you like, or serve it with a crisp green salad

I made a decent portion of the tartare sauce. There was plenty leftover after 2 of us tucked in, and I tend to use a lot of sauce for my fish & chips, so the ingredients for the sauce would probably cover 4 portions and it worked out at 3 SmartPoints for the whole recipe. I’ll break down the SmartPoints per element in the recipe below, to make it easy to pick and choose if you don’t want to use all elements (or make less or more of something). These will not be per serving but the total of the ingredients in that section.

Serves: 2

SmartPoints per serving: 15

SmartPoints on No Count: 4

Ingredients:

Crumbed Fish (10SP)

2 hake fillets (roughly 120g each)

1 egg whisked

20g panko breadcrumbs

20g crushed cornflakes

½ tbsp plain flour

1 tsp dried mixed herbs

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

Chips (12SP)

400g potatoes, peeled & chipped

1 tsp sunflower oil

1 tsp garlic powder (optional)

Minted Peas (3SP)

150g frozen peas

1 tbsp fresh mint chopped

1 tsp 0% fat greek yoghurt

Tartare Sauce (4sp)

½ small red onion

2 pickled cucumbers

2 tbsp capers

1 tbsp chopped parsley (fresh or dried)

70g extra light mayo

50g 0% fat greek yoghurt

1 tsp salad cream

Preheat the oven to 200C (fan 180).

Put the chips in cold water, bring to the boil and cook for 5 minutes. Leave to steam dry for a few minutes and then dry further using a clean teatowel. Toss in the oil and garlic powder (if using) and season well with salt & pepper. While this is going on, preheat the tray you will be using to cook them. When the tray is hot, spread the chips over and put in the over for 30 minutes.

Season the flour with the herbs, paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper and coat the fish fillets in it. Mix up the panko breadcrumbs and cornflakes, then dip the floured fish in the egg then the breadcrumb mixture before placing on an oven tray misted with spray oil.  Place these in the oven for 20 minutes.

Try to time this so you are adding the chips to the oven 10 minutes after putting the chips in, and when you do this you can turn the chips at the same time.

While the fish & chips are cooking, make the tartare sauce. Finely chop the onion, pickle and capers and combine with the rest of the ingredients. Season with salt & black pepper to taste.  You can use a food processor here, but I prefer to do it by hand as I do like to have some texture there and it can be easy to over chop in a food processor.

Finally, cook the peas according to the packet instructions. Drain and  roughly mash with the mint & greek yoghurt. Season to taste salt & black pepper. You can add more or less mint, depending on your preferences.

Remove the fish & chips from the oven and serve immediately.