Recently, my son tried fish sticks for the first time and enjoyed them. But, trying to find a "healthy" premade fish stick is practically impossible. I have used resources such as Eat This, Not That and while it does offer one or two products to try, those brands are not available in my area. The other part to this endeavor is that I am trying to be a big girl and try new foods that I previously would not eat. Fish, would be one such food. So, I got out my sneaky cookbooks, waited until my mom was here for moral support and finally took the plunge. I don't know why I was so intimidated by working with fish, but I was, and maybe you are too. I learned that my irrational concerns were just that, irrational, and made some yummy and healthy fish sticks that my family now enjoys. As far as my journey with learning to eat fish, it is off to a slow, steady start with several successful ventures involving tilapia. Any suggestions for a newbie fish eater would be greatly appreciated.
This recipe is fairly simple and almost identical to the tasty chicken tenders that I have been making for quite a while. I started with fresh tilapia (the recipe also says that you can use flounder). I cut the fish into "sticks" about one inch wide strips or whatever looks like a fish stick in your home. Before I got the fish out of the refrigerator I prepared my breading station which looked like this except I used white puree instead of orange.
Once your fish is cut into sticks then it is time to bread it. Simply, coat it in the flour mixture on both sides, then dredge it through the white puree and egg mixture and then coat in the better breading mixture. I added some simple seasonings to the breading mixture, but could you get creative and add your favorite fish seasoning here as well. If you are going to use immediately then you can go ahead and pan-fry or bake in the oven. But, if you are making these for future use, then place on a waxed paper covered cookie sheet and place in the freezer to "flash freeze" for about 1-2 hours then you can store in freezer bags until you are ready to use. Simply, pan-fry or oven-bake the frozen fish sticks as you would the fresh.
These fish sticks cook more quickly than the chicken tenders and are a great option for a quick dinner or lunch. As a bonus, researches at the University of Sydney have found that children who regularly eat fresh, oily fish have four times lower the risk of developing asthma than do children who rarely eat such fish.
To get the full recipe in a printable format, just click on the title of this post or click on the tab in the sidebar labled recipes and then scroll down to "white puree." Fish sticks should be listed there.
Enjoy! Hopefully, it won't take us this long to catch up again!
