In episode 083 we are making Crispy Fish Sticks for dinner. If is a perfect dinner for “fish Friday” during Lent or a great family friendly dinner any night of the week. No need to pull the minced and pressed fish sticks out of the freezer when you can make your own crispy fish sticks made with whole filet of cod fish.
Serve it with a side of Cilantro Lime Slaw and some fries, tater tots or kettle chips for a great dinner.
Transcript
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Intro: Welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your Audio library of amazing Dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.
Susie Weinrich: Hey everybody. Happy Thursday. I’m so glad that you’re joining me today to make a little bit of dinner. I know on Thursdays a lot of people run out of dinner ideas and you’re like, what the hell am I going make for dinner tonight? You know that you can always come to the Let’s Make Dinner Podcast and figure out what you’re going to make for dinner. If you’re a part of my newsletter, then you know that we are in the middle of a huge construction project at our house. We are finishing our basement completely. We’re leaving a little bit of storage left, but the rest of it’s going to be finished. So I’m going to have a large kitchen space down there so that I can start doing some live video and just recorded video for YouTube. We’re putting a living room, kind of a game space, a bedroom and a bathroom down there. So I have my fingers crossed that they will not be drilling cement while I am recording this episode. So if you hear anything that’s herky jerky or me starting and stopping, it’s because they started drilling cement. But hopefully, fingers crossed, we can make it through this episode.
I do want to say, speaking of newsletter, If you are not a part of the Let’s Make Dinner and Mom’s Dinner newsletter, I would love to have you join our newsletter community. So I send out a newsletter every Thursday of course, you know, for the new podcast episode. Then I send out a newsletter on Sunday morning that goes over all the new recipes that are on Mom’s Dinner. So if you’re not familiar, Mom’s Dinner is actually the website where I share the actual recipes. Let’s Make Dinner is the podcast portion.
On Sunday, Mom’s Dinner sends out a newsletter that has all of the new recipes. It has kitchen tips and tricks, it has dinner ideas for the week. So if you want to join that, there will be a link to subscribe right on the show notes of this episode.
This week since we’re kind of in the middle of Lent, so if you’re listening to this real time, we are halfway through March. So you’ve got just a couple more weeks of Lent to go if you celebrate Lent. We actually don’t give up anything or do fish Fridays in this house, but I know that a lot of people do. So I thought this week we would make some homemade crispy fish sticks. So if your family is a fish lover, then you are absolutely going to love these because it’s like having a really high quality fish stick. So basically like fried fish, right? But instead of frying, we’re actually going to bake these, but since we’re using a Panko breadcrumb, they’re going to get nice and crispy right in the oven. So this crispy fish stick recipe will take, I don’t know, probably about 15 minutes to prep, but the cooking time is super short. We’re talking under 10 minutes here to get them nice and crispy in the oven. So you’re looking at probably around 30 minutes by the time everything is prepped and done and in the oven and then ready to go. So not a super long labor intensive dinner recipe, which is great. How the recipe is written, it will serve about five people. But of course, if you want to double or triple the recipe, you absolutely can. On my recipe card. There will be a little button that says servings. You just hover over how many servings there are, and a little slider will appear and you can just increase the amount of people to serve. What will happen is all of the ingredients will also increase in the recipe cards, so you know how many ingredients you need to serve you know, seven people, 10 people, 20 people, whatever you want. I’m sliding it right now, it looks like it goes all the way up to 20 people. I’m going to slide it right back down to five.
Tips and Tricks: Now as far as tips and tricks, let’s talk about a couple ingredients that you need for these fish sticks. One of the first ingredients is obviously the fish. The recipe says that you need one and a half pounds of fresh cod filets. You can use cod. If you can’t find cod, or you maybe don’t like cod, or the cod looks terrible at the grocery store, you could also use some other firm white flesh fish. That is so hard for me to say. Firm white flesh fish. You can use a haddock, a hake, or a catfish. Even tilapia will work, although sometimes tilapia filets are awfully thin.
The next ingredient is the Panko breadcrumbs. When you’re at the grocery store, the aisle where you normally get your breadcrumbs. There will also be an option called Panko breadcrumbs. That’s what you want. They’re actually considered a Japanese style, I think it’s Japanese, Japanese style breadcrumbs. What it is, it’s bread with the crust removed and then it’s dried and ground into a much coarser texture. So traditional breadcrumbs are pretty fine and kind of smooth. Panko breadcrumbs are like if you took a saltine cracker and crunched it up. So they’re perfect for a crispy, crunchy coating.
Then all of the other ingredients are pretty traditional as far as you know, breading, fish or chicken. You’ll have flour, eggs, seasonings, and then you will need a non-stick spray.
Crispy Fish Sticks: So let’s go ahead and get into the full recipe for your crispy fish sticks. So when you’re breading an item, my best tip here is to set up an assembly line. So you’ll need three shallow bowls. In the first bowl, you’re going to place a half a cup of all-purpose flour mixed with one and a quarter teaspoons of kosher salt. Then in the second bowl, you’re going to beat together three eggs with one tablespoon of Dijon mustard. This part is optional. If you like a little tiny kick of heat, you can add a quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper and mix that in there with eggs. Then the third bowl, you’re going to mix those breadcrumbs. So you need two cups of Panko breadcrumbs mixed with one teaspoon of onion powder, one teaspoon of garlic powder, one teaspoon of paprika, or smoked paprika and that’s it. So mix all those together, line up your three bowls.
Then you also want to preheat your broiler in your oven and place the oven rack right in the middle position. Get a really large rimmed baking sheet. Cover it with foil and then generously spray it with non-stick spray.
Now you want to take those cod filets and pat them dry with a paper towel. Then you’re going to cut them into about one inch strips. Maybe one inch thick and maybe three inches long. So just a normal fish stick that you would get, you know, a frozen fish stick. That’s kind of what you want them to look like. But, you know, these are homemade, so if they don’t look great, it’s totally fine. They’ll still taste good.
All right. You’ll start by dipping a cod strip into that flour mixture. Dredge it all through there, and then give it a little shake to shake off any excess flour. Then you’re going to dip it fully in that egg mixture. Then the last step is to dredge it in that Panko mixture. What I like to do is kind of lightly press the Panko mixture onto the fish sticks so that it adheres to the fish. Then you’re going to place that right on your prepared baking sheet, and then repeat that with all of the fish sticks that you cut.
When all of them are coated and they’re on that baking rack, what you want to do is spray the tops of them with non-stick spray. Again, generously spray them. Spraying the tops and having the foil sprayed on the bottom is going to help that Panko breadcrumbs become nice and golden and crispy.
So you’ll pop them into the preheated oven on that middle rack for about four minutes. Then you’re going to pull them out, flip them over, and pop them in for about another three to four minutes. You’ll know when they’re done when your fish sticks have reached 145 degree internal temperature. That means they are cooked through. You can use just one of those. Instant read thermometers are great. I will actually link the one that I use right in the show notes for you.
For serving these fish sticks, you know, keep it casual, keep it easy. Traditionally, we’re talking french fries, tater tots, kettle chips, fish and chips. Maybe some raw veggies with ranch dip or hummus. If you want to add a little bit more, you could add a green side salad or maybe some roasted vegetables.
Traditionally, you add a little bit of tartar sauce on the side, and I actually have two recipes for homemade tartar sauce. If you’re like, yeah, I’m not making my own tartar sauce, you can just get some at the grocery store and use that, but my guess is one of the kids in your family will just use ketchup because that’s how it is at my house. One kid uses ketchup, one kid uses mustard. But, if you guys like tartar sauce, I have a classic tartar sauce recipe. Then I also have a jalapeno tartar sauce recipe that’s really good.
If you are someone who likes to prepare meals and kind of get things ready ahead of time, right in the recipe card, I’m not going to go over it here, but right in the recipe card, there are instructions for making the fish sticks and then freezing them and then reheating them from frozen. So just like you would have frozen fish sticks from the grocery store, you can actually make them to have frozen fish sticks.
Outro: All right, so that does it for the full episode of Let’s Make Dinner. I hope that you make these wonderful fish sticks for dinner tonight and cook along with me here on this episode.
Like I said before, I would love to have you guys join my newsletter. There will be a link right in the show notes, whatever podcast platform you’re listening on, I’m going to pop a link right in there so you can click it and just send your email address to me and you’ll be signed up for my newsletter.
So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner Makes your Dinner Time a little easier. See ya!
Double Dip: All right, now it’s time for your double dip. Thanks for sticking around, guys. So in the double dip, if you’re enjoying cooking along with me on Thursdays and you’re finding it helpful and that it helps you plan your dinners when you’re fresh out of dinner ideas, you can always listen to the Double Dip and know it’s coming up the next week. Make sure you have the groceries ready and cook along with me right on Thursdays.
So next week on, let’s see, what date will that be? That will be March 23rd. We are making Asian meatballs with a delicious hoisin glaze over top. These are so, so good. You can serve them up with a little bit of steamed rice or fried rice, which actually we like to buy ours just right at Trader Joe’s in their frozen food section. Super easy, and then I usually get some either sugar snap peas or snow peas and saute them or make some roasted broccoli and it makes just an absolutely perfect dinner.
Okay, so here’s what you’re going to need to make the Asian meatballs with the hoisin glaze. Hoisin glaze. I have a really hard time saying that word too. Oh my gosh. Okay. Here is what you need. I’m going to preface this just like I did when we made our Veggie Pad Thai. Some of these Asian style recipes have a ton of ingredients, but really once you get some of these ingredients, you have them and you can make a whole lot of delicious Asian style food.
So for this next episode, you’re going to need one egg, soy sauce, sesame oil, kosher salt, red pepper flakes, ground ginger. I’m talking about like dry ground ginger that you would find in the spice cabinet. Fresh garlic cloves, panko breadcrumbs, one and a half pounds of 85% lean ground beef, three scallions, non-stick spray. Then for the glaze, for the hoisin glaze, you need vegetable oil, garlic, fresh ginger, and this is a little tip about fresh ginger. You can of course buy the big knobs of fresh ginger in the produce aisle, or you can go to the frozen food section and go where they have some frozen herbs and there’s a brand called Dorot Gardens, and they have little cubes of frozen ginger that are perfect and it couldn’t be easier to use. So that’s what I use. You’ll need hoisin sauce, ketchup, rice vinegar, sambal, which is basically like garlic chili sauce, soy sauce, and again sesame oil. So that’s what you need for next week. I hope you’ll join me and cook along with me next week. Until then, I hope you guys have a great week. See ya.
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Next week we are making Asian Meatballs with Hoisin Glaze. Pop over and grab the ingredients list. If you are on your phone you can even text yourself the recipe link and ingredient list!
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