CHEF and blogger Paul James writes for our paper.
Okay, it does sound a very strange dish but trust me it really does work – even down to the honeyed peas.
This is a little flashback to my childhood memories growing up in West Heath.
Now everyone loves the battered scraps that assemble at the bottom of your bag of fish and chips – well I can remember going to our local chip shop and the lovely lady who owned it would always give us youngsters a tray or cone of these crunchy delights.
If any of us had enough money we would get a scallop (not the fish type, the potato fritter version) and hover around the fruit machine that was placed in the corner, even though we were not old enough to play it.
I love all of the reminiscing and I try to bring all of these memories back into my dishes of today.
I cooked this dish a few years ago trying to impress a new girlfriend of mine.
I thought I would be a little flash and got myself one of those very small spray bottles and filled it with vinegar – the idea was to serve this plate of food and spray the vinegar into the air, so it would replicate the smell of fish and chips. Clever eh?
Unfortunately not.
I never put the top on correctly and sprayed her straight in the eyes with the vinegar. True story.
She was a lovely lady – I always wondered what happened to her after that night….. Oh well.
Anyway please try this dish, you will be surprised, but just leave the vinegar alone on the table.
Visit recipesfrommytravels.com for more on Paul’s blog and recipes.
Steamed cod with black pudding and batter scraps with salad potatoes, samphire and honey-flavoured peas
Ingredients
Cod fillet
Black pudding
Salad potatoes
Samphire
Handful of frozen Peas
1tsp of honey
2tsps of baking powder
Flour
Pinch of salt for batter
Squeeze of a lemon
Water
200ml of cooking oil
Method
1. To make the batter mix, grab yourself a bowl, then add flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix well.
2. Then pour in your water (at this stage the choice of liquid is yours – sparkling water, beer – the choice is endless, but be very careful if you are using spirits like vodka or whiskey because of the hot oil.
3. So I’ve just gone for plain ice cold water.
4. Heat up the pan with oil, then take a colander and gently pour some of your batter mix through the colander and into the hot oil, swirling it around but be very careful.
5. Do this in batches and dry off on some kitchen towel.
6. Then either in a hot oven or frying pan cook your black pudding until it goes crispy.
7. Crumble it and mix with your batter scraps.
8. Now you can steam your fish, if you have a steamer great! But if not use a colander, sieve etc – obviously not plastic. Fill a saucepan up with boiling water (I added fennel to the water so it infused the fish ever so delicately) and place your fish in the colander etc and steam for around seven minutes depending on your cod fillet.
9. While the fish is steaming, heat a little butter in a pan and add the samphire and pre-Cooked potatoes.
10. Warm through and add a squeeze of lemon juice.
11. Add the peas to a bowl, pour over boiling water and leave for a few minutes, drain and add your honey and mix well.
12. Now just assemble the dish on a warm plate.
