I’m Loving

As Australia's top produce is celebrated, Matt Preston goes the other way and announces his culinary duds, and updates a classic sandwich in the process.

The best fish finger sandwich.

THIS MONTH MARKS the annual delicious. Harvey Norman Produce Awards night, where I’ll be on stage trying to get through the long list of deserving award winners before the chefs by the bar get too loud. I’ll shake a lot of hands. Not chefs’ hands full of booze glasses, but firm hands, like sandpaper-wrapped granite. Paws that get up early to plunge into soil, dairy troughs or icy waters to bring us the deliciousness our panel has been judging.

This panel has about 2000 years of experience between them. Occasionally, however, the odd rogue product gets through and long-buried Shakespearean rivalries rise from the dead. This got me thinking… would it be helpful if I shared my list of items that should never win a Produce Award? Here goes…

FROM THE PADDOCK

Never give an award to Spam (no matter how much it is venerated in Korea and across the Pacific), Saveloys, Cheerios, Twiggy sticks, tinned chicken, really, really white veal, and caged eggs. Oh, and no awards for any fake honey from China.

FROM THE EARTH

Any mixed cut frozen vegetables, canned creamed corn, Deb, fluffy white loaves of death, marrow-fat peas, reduced sugar and salt baked beans unless they’re made by hand in a forest in Tasmania and packed in recycled sugarcane, oak leaf lettuce, tinned cocktail mix (although tinned peaches have a love of their own – probably why I’m no longer on the judging panel).

FROM THE DAIRY

Cheese in a jar, cheese in a can, cheese stringers, vegan cheese, cheese Twisties, cheese slices that flop like the most disappointing of dates, sour cream popcorn, margarine, caramel and cheese popcorn (mixed), ice cream with loads of air whipped into it. Anything where the ingredients list reads like a particularly fun weekend at a music festival.

FROM THE SEA

Fish sticks, fish balls, fish mousse, fish paste in a jar, illegally fished tuna, endangered anything, farmed mulloway that tastes of mud and anything that requires the useless death of bycatch. There’s been a push to ban fish fingers from this list but I am loathe to legislate against them for fear it would stop me cooking the famous fish finger sandwiches I fed, with much acclaim, to George Calombaris, Gary Mehigan and Heston Blumenthal when touring around country Victoria for MasterChef.

But I have felt that I might need to step up my fish finger game rather than pulling them from a packet. So, for this challenge, I give you my answer to the Japanese katsu sandwich. My – and this is real Japanese – fisshufingasandoitchi (aka the Kingfish Katsu).

FISH FINGER SANDWICH WITH MISO & BACON MAYONNAISE SERVES 4

1/ 2 cup (75g) plain flour

2 cups (100g) panko breadcrumbs

1/4 bunch flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

1 cup (250ml) milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

600g skinless kingfish fillet, sliced into 4cm x 10cm fingers

Sunflower oil, to deep-fry

8 thick slices white bread, crusts removed Unsalted butter, room temperature

8 large shiso leaves, picked, plus extra small leaves to garnish

1 avocado, sliced

2 Lebanese cucumbers, sliced into 5mm lengths Store-bought pickled ginger, (or try Matt Preston’s pickled ginger recipe online at delicious.com.au)

MISO & BACON MAYONNAISE

2 (30g each) thin smoked bacon rashers, rind removed 3/4 cup (225g) Kewpie mayonnaise 1 tbs white miso paste 1/4 tsp smoked paprika

For the miso and bacon mayonnaise, heat a non-stick frypan over high heat. Add bacon and cook for 1-2 minutes, turn and cook for 1 minute or until golden. Drain on a plate lined with paper towel. Once bacon is cool, place in a food processor with remaining ingredients and whiz until bacon is finely chopped. Season.

To make the fish fingers, season flour, then spread on a tray. Combine breadcrumbs and parsley on a separate tray. In a bowl, beat milk with the eggs. Working with 1 piece of fish at a time, coat first in flour, then in milk mixture, and finally in the breadcrumbs. Repeat with remaining fish. Chill for 15 minutes before frying.

Half-fill a large saucepan with oil and heat to 180°C (a cube of bread will turn golden in 45 seconds when the oil is hot enough). Fry fish fingers, in batches, for 2-3 minutes or until golden. Drain on paper towel and season. Repeat with remaining fish fingers.

Trim bread slices to slightly wider than fish fingers. Spread 1 side of each bread slice lightly with butter and place, buttered-side up, on a clean work surface. Top 4 bread slices with shiso, avocado, cucumber and fish fingers. Drizzle with miso and bacon mayonnaise. Top with remaining 4 slices of bread, buttered-side down. Scatter over extra shiso and serve with pickled ginger.