Fish & Chips
Cheffie Series
Welcome, friends! I’m excited to share a reimagined take on the classic fish and chips recipe! Now you’re probably thinking that looks nothing like fish & chips, and you’re right; it’s my weird ideas that I have to try out, and this new series is all about allowing me to show you how and why I come up with certain concepts. Now I don’t expect most of you to take this dish on. It’s a bit challenging; HOWEVER, hopefully, you might be interested in reading about it. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts about it.
Fish & chips have been a staple in British cuisine for centuries, but we wanted to put a modern spin on it and give it a fresh new look. I’ve created a delicious and unique version of this beloved dish that will impress.
The traditional fish and chips recipe calls for deep-frying cod or haddock in a batter made from flour, salt, and water. However, I’ve swapped things out with a scallop and prawn crystal dumpling. These dumplings wrapped are made from wheat starch and based the recipes on the woks of life wrapper recipe. The filling is a blend of sweet scallops and umami prawns with chives and ginger; I wanted to keep this bowl of dumplings exceptionally clean as a contrast to the 'chips’ on the plate.
Around the dumplings are fresh peas and samphire cooked in lemon to give the sour mushy pea flavour and dressed in chive oil which splits the broth when added.
The broth is kinda based on a Tom Yum, with loads of umami and chilli. I’ve removed the shrimp paste not to combat the flavour of the dumplings.
Serve on traditional newspaper is a potato tuille filled with a smoked haddock tartare labneh. The cylinder is dusted in parsley and vinegar salt instead of the greasy malt vinegar chips we all know and love.
Do let me know what you think of this type of recipe; it is very different to my usual stuff, and this is the type of thing I enjoy cooking to impress guests.
Philli xoxo
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Challenging
Cook Time: 2 hrs
Special Equipment: Metal tubes, Potato spaghetti, preferably high power blender like thermomix.
Ingredients
Dumpling Filling
125g raw frozen prawns, peeled, deveined and roughly chopped
100g small frozen scallops, roughly chopped
Pinch salt and ground white pepper
½ tsp sesame oil
1/2 egg white
1 tbsp chives, finely sliced
1/2 inch ginger, minced
1/2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp corn flour
Crystal Wrappers
50 g wheat starch
50 g tapioca starch
10 g cornstarch (plus more for kneading)
150 g water
5 g vegetable oil3 cup (750 ml)
Tom Yum Broth
750 ml water
Shelled and heads from the prawns
125 ml chicken stock/broth
2 stalks of lemongrass , outer layers peeled(
1.5 cm / 3/5" piece of galangal , cut into 4 slices, or 1 tsp galagal paste
5 kaffir lime leaves , torn roughly
2 Thai or birdseye chillies
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
3 tbsp lime juice
Coriander Oil
1 Bunch Coriander
200ml Veg Oil
Potato Tube
1 large maris piper potatoes, peeled
2 tbsp butter
2 sheets filo pastry
500ml oil for frying
Smoked Haddock Tartare Sauce
200g Full fat yoghurt, hung for 2 days
2 tbsp capers, chopped
1/2 Lemon zest
1 small fillet smoked haddock
Green Salt & Vinegar Powder
Citric Acid
Salt
Parsley
Garnish
4 tbsp podded peas and samphire, blanched finished in olive oil lemon and garlic
Osetra caviar
Method
Make the dumpling filled by blending all the ingredients except the chives until it’s a smooth paste. Stir through the chives, season and then test out a spoon of the mix by adding it to a frying pan and cooking. Adjust with more salt and pepper if necessary.
For the dumpling wrappers, whisk together the wheat starch, tapioca starch, and cornstarch. Add the water to a medium pot along with the vegetable oil. Cover and bring to a boil. The second it comes to a boil, remove it from the heat. Add the water into the starch mix in thirds and until you have an opaque shaggy dough. It will look dry, with some starch still not mixed in. Cover the pot tightly, and rest the dough for 5 minutes.
Lightly dust a clean, dry work surface with some cornstarch. Uncover the pot and begin kneading the dough with the rubber spatula, folding it over repeatedly for 3 minutes. Dust your hands with cornstarch and knead the dough by hand on the work surface until it is smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. The dough should now be smooth, pliable, and relatively stretchy. Roll the dough and divide into about 16 pieces cover them with tea towel.
Dust a rolling pin with cornstarch. On a surface lightly dusted with cornstarch, roll each piece of dough out into a round disc about 3 to 3½ inches in diameter. Add about 1 tablespoon of filling to the center of the wrapper. Wrap up the dumpling into a triangle or creasant shape, continue assembling until you’ve used all the wrappers and filling. Put them in a lined tray in the freezer until you need to use them.
Place prawn heads and shell in pot, use a meat mallet or similar to bash the garlic, chilli and lemongrass so they burst open to release flavour, add into pot. Crush kaffir lime leaves with your hands, add into pot. Add galangal, stock and water. Bring to simmer on high heat, cover, then reduce to medium and simmer for 10 minutes.Strain the broth, discard the prawn shells etc, then return broth into same pot over low heat. Add finish with sugar, fish sauce and lime juice.
Blend the coriander with oil on medium for 8 mins, if you have a thermo-mix temp 80c. Strain through a cheese/J cloth over ice and reserve.
Using a veg spaghetti machine, shave into potato spaghetti. Store in a bowl of water. Melt butter and brush 15cm wide piece of filo pastry then fold it in half so you have a long piece. Take a metal tube and wrap it tightly in filo and brush with butter then seal. Tightly wrap the potato spaghetti around the filo tube and then fry at 160c until golden. Remove and allow to rest before gently removing. Repeat until you have at least 4 pieces. Store in an airtight container.
Steam the smoked haddock until cooked approx. 5-7 mins. Allow to fully cool. Mix with hung yoghurt, capers, lemon zest and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Blend dried parsely, citric acid (or vinegar powder) and salt on high until a fine powder.
Place the dumplings in a bamboo steamer lined with perforated parchment paper, and steam the dumplings over boiling water at medium-high heat for about 6-8 minutes, until translucent.
Serve the dumplings with spoons of fresh peas and samphire, a drizzle of coriander oil and fresh flowers. Heat the broth until piping hot. Pipe the smoked haddock tartare labneh in the potato tuille, add caviar to each end of the tuille and dust with the parsley vinegar powder.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe if you’re getting to this stage of reading CONGRATS!!! you made it! Give yourself a pat on the back. Honestly, the broth alone drool-worthy. I love this dish and I hope you do too. xxxx
