Seafood Made Simple: How to make these flaky, garlicky fish kievs
Megrim kiev potato salad. Picture Chani Anderson
Chefs are always inspired by classic recipes, dishes we might have learned at culinary college, in the various restaurants where we cut our teeth or, more often than not, by the foods we spent eating during our childhood.
Growing up, few things seemed more exciting than a self-saucing, golden brown chicken Kiev placed on the kitchen table for dinner.
Always served with baked potatoes, stuffed very generously with more of the same home-made garlic butter — I was spoilt!
Josh Niland, of fish butchery fame, was the first chef I’d seen put a seafood Kiev on a menu, filling King George whiting with garlic butter.
He has been the first chef to do many things with seafood for that matter – fish eye ice cream, swordfish belly bacon, tuna salami and yellow fin tuna cheeseburgers at his restaurants in Paddington, Australia.
All of which is extremely well documented in his three books: The Whole Fish, Take One Fish and Fish Butchery.
For my take on a seafood Kiev I thought I’d opt for a fish that’s native to our waters but we don’t eat much of in this country – megrim.
A wonderful googly-eyed flat fish with delicious flaky flesh once cooked, megrim has a beautifully delicate and mineral flavour, and it’s also a very economical fish.
I'm serving it this weekend with a super simple mustard-rich potato salad.
You could use any flat fish here: plaice, brill, lemon sole. Choose fillets on the larger size to make your life easier when filling with garlic butter and coating in the panko breadcrumbs.
You can also use thicker fillets of round fish like cod, hake or pollock and make a little incision in the centre of those fillets to fill with garlic butter.
Tails of round fish are brilliant for this application too: sandwich two together just as outlined in the recipe below.
Fish Kievs with Potato Salad
For my take on a seafood Kiev I thought I’d opt for a fish that’s native to our waters but we don’t eat much of in this country – megrim.
Servings
4Course
MainIngredients
For the Kiev
300g butter
1 lemon zested
3 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tbsp fresh parsley chopped
320g megrim fillets skinned (8 large fillets)
150ml milk
2 eggs beaten
120g flour
150g panko breadcrumbs
For the potato salad
650g baby potatoes
2 gherkins diced
2 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 tsp Dijon
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp crème fraîche
1 tbsp chopped dill
Zest of 1 lemon
Method
In a small bowl, combine the butter, minced garlic, chopped parsley and lemon zest.
Lay four fillets of megrim on a large tray. Place one teaspoon of garlic butter in the centre of each fillet.
Lay another fillet of megrim over each fillet, covering the garlic butter to form four Kievs.
Wrap each Kiev tightly in greaseproof paper to force the fillets together and chill in the refrigerator overnight or for a minimum of 1 hour.
Remove the Kievs from the greaseproof paper.
Place the flour in one small bowl, the milk and beaten egg in another bowl, and the breadcrumbs in a third.
Working in batches, pass the fish parcels through the flour first, next through the milk and egg mixture and finally through the breadcrumbs, shaking off the excess flour, egg, milk and breadcrumbs at each stage.
Place on a tray or a plate in the refrigerator until ready to cook.
Heat a small deep fryer to 180°C and fry the Kievs in batches of 2 at a time for 4 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper and season with sea salt and serve.
To make the potato salad, place the potatoes in a medium saucepan on medium-high heat and fill to cover with cold water.
Season with salt.
Bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer and cook for 10-12 minutes until a small knife glides through the potato without resistance.
Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool.
In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, crème fraîche, dill, lemon zest, Dijon and wholegrain mustard to make the dressing.
Cut the potatoes into small chunks and dress. Taste to correct the seasoning.
- Ensure the butter is at room temperature for making the garlic butter.
- Choose evenly sized fillets of fish to make these Kievs. This will make filling and forcing them together much easier.
- Once formed, these Kievs can be stored in the refrigerator overnight or kept in the freezer for weeks.
- Instead of deep frying, these Kievs can also be baked in a preheated oven at 190°C for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.
- For best results with the potato salad, use room temperature just-cooked potatoes. The potatoes will absorb the dressing much better.
- Make a double batch of this garlic butter and store in the freezer.
- If you’d rather avoid the hassle of filling the fillets with garlic butter you could just panko-breadcrumb the fillets and serve with slices of garlic butter on top once cooked.
