…as our Australian frenz might say…fish and chips to the rest of the world…

One of my challenges in my green journey is slowly purging the house of legacy foodstuffs…I got in early and disposed on the all the processed snacky food like chips/crisps and chocolate bars (too much 4 for $4 at the New World checkout!) before Christmas. Even if the way I disposed of them was not particularly healthy, it got the job done.

I am now working my way through the big freezer in the garage where I have been stashing loads of ‘reduced to clear’ meat. The last 5-6 nights I have been watching movies while peeling and dicing this years take of cooking apples before stewing them for long-term storage over winter: in making space for them in the freezer, I found even more meat packs that need to be disposed of…so dinner selections are becoming a bit of a lucky dip until they are all gone…

Sunday night, two large hoki fillet surfaced – easily enough for two meals for me + as it turned out, a late night snack as well…I probably could have gotten two decent meals from each fillet. Needing to also dispose of the large bag of potatoes in the back pantry, I opted for a traditional serving of fish with chips over a curry or such. I don’t do deep frying any more so the fish had to be baked or pan fried, while the chips would go through the air fryer…

Preparing the chips is pretty simple:

Rinse the potatoes – I don’t bother peeling them

Slice them about 3-4mm thick and about 10mm wide.

Rinse them in the colander from a  Tupperware steamer set and then dry the pieces in a clean tea towel.

Place the dried chips in the base of the Tupperware steamer, pour over a tablespoon of your choice of cooking oil, a good shaking of salt or other flavour – my chip flavour of choice at the moment is Cajun spice mix – place the lid of the steamer on and shake them all about..

Place the oiled and spiced chips into the air fryer basket.

Turn the fryer to high and set the timer to 20 minutes. Every five minutes or so, take the basket out and give the chips a good shake-up.

I had seen online a recipe for parmesan baked fish but my search couldn’t bring up one that I like so I just ran with the idea and combined what was left of the parmesan in the fridge, grated finely, with parsley and breadcrumbs – both products of home, and 3 cloves of garlic and a little sea salt. I blended this in the Tupperware Terminator and would have had enough for both fillets if I hadn’t knocked the bowl into the sink…

Two eggs, blended by hand, provided a gooey take for the crumb mix and I applied this twice to each piece to get a good thick layer. I poured the little bit of remaining egg over the fish in the pan and followed this with the last of the used crumb mix…one of the recipes I had seen recommended cooking the fish in butter with a lemon’s worth of juice in the pan as well – a great idea!

The lemon juice made a real difference to the taste – I’ve never been a big fan of squeezing raw juice over my fish – and blended well with the flavours in the crumb mix.

Last night, being a little short on the same crumb mix, I beefed up the surviving mix with more bread crumbs, garlic, parsley and fresh coriander, blending this time in the blender to get this cool Hulk-green colour…

They might look a little odd in the pan…

…but tasted beautiful…anyone for a Hulk Fish Burger..?

Still quite a healthy meal with only a small quantity of butter and oil used, mainly herbs and spices with homemade wholemeal breadcrumbs…I’m quite a way down my green journey so the quantity of potato was probably n the limit for me know but the small quantity of parmesan added good flavour but no weight…