A fish finger sandwich is a

sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

containing fish fingers, a battered or breaded fish. It is a popular dish in Britain where it is a comfort food. The sandwich often has no other filling, but may include a sauce such as

tartare Steak tartare or tartar steak is a dish of raw ground (minced) beef. It is usually served with onions, capers, mushrooms, pepper, Worcestershire sauce, and other seasonings, often presented separately, to be added to taste. It is often serve ...

mayonnaise Mayonnaise (; ), colloquially referred to as "mayo" , is a thick, cold, and creamy sauce or dressing commonly used on sandwiches, hamburgers, composed salads, and French fries. It also forms the base for various other sauces, such as tarta ...

ketchup Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and tangy flavor. The unmodified term ("ketchup") now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes used egg whites, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, mussels, or walnuts, among ot ...

. Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has described the sandwich as a

guilty pleasure A guilty pleasure is something, such as a film, a television program, or a piece of music, that one enjoys despite understanding that it is not generally held in high regard, or is seen as unusual or weird. For example, a person may secretly like ...

: "As a chef I always feel I shouldn't be eating something like a fish finger buttie – but you know what, I think that makes it taste even better." Restaurants which have included fish finger sandwiches in their menu include: Bill's, Kerbisher & Malt and Leon. In 2017,

Birds Eye Birds Eye is an American international brand of frozen foods owned by Conagra Brands in the United States, by Nomad Foods in Europe, and Simplot in Australia. The former Birds Eye Company Ltd., originally named "Birdseye Seafood, Inc." had bee ...

sponsored Fish Finger Sandwich Awards, whose final stage was held at

Mark Hix Mark Ernest Hix is an English chef and restaurateur whose traditional English menus often feature foraged and local foods. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hix was based in London, but announced in January 2021 that he would be relocating to D ...

's Tramshed restaurant. There were separate prizes for the best professional and best entry from the public. The judges were

Gregg Wallace Gregg Allan Wallace (born 17 October 1964) is an English broadcaster, entrepreneur, media personality, writer and former greengrocer. He is known for co-presenting ''MasterChef'', '' Celebrity MasterChef'' and '' MasterChef: The Professionals'', ...

, Jennifer Bedloe, Xanthe Clay, Peter Lack and Danny Kingston, while Captain Birdseye looked on. The winning professional was Chris Lanyon of the Chapel Café in

Port Isaac Port Isaac ( kw, Porthysek) is a small fishing village on the Atlantic coast of north Cornwall, England, in the United Kingdom. The nearest towns are Wadebridge and Camelford, each ten miles (16 km) away. A nearby hamlet, Port Gaverne, is ...

whose recipe included

hake The term hake refers to fish in the: * Family Merlucciidae of northern and southern oceans * Family Phycidae (sometimes considered the subfamily Phycinae in the family Gadidae) of the northern oceans Hake Hake is in the same taxonomic order ( ...

panko Bread crumbs or breadcrumbs (regional variants including breading and crispies) consist of crumbled bread of various dryness, sometimes with seasonings added, used for breading or crumbing foods, topping casseroles, stuffing poultry, thick ...

with tartar sauce. Gabrielle Sander made the best public entry, which was dressed with

caper ''Capparis spinosa'', the caper bush, also called Flinders rose, is a perennial plant that bears rounded, fleshy leaves and large white to pinkish-white flowers. The plant is best known for the edible flower buds (capers), used as a seasoning ...

lime juice A lime (from French ''lime'', from Arabic ''līma'', from Persian ''līmū'', "lemon") is a citrus fruit, which is typically round, green in color, in diameter, and contains acidic juice vesicles. There are several species of citrus tree ...

, smoked

paprika Paprika ( US , ; UK , ) is a spice made from dried and ground red peppers. It is traditionally made from '' Capsicum annuum'' varietals in the Longum group, which also includes chili peppers, but the peppers used for paprika tend to be milder ...

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entire ...

and

wasabi Wasabi ( Japanese: , , or , ; ''Eutrema japonicum'' or ''Wasabia japonica'') or Japanese horseradish is a plant of the family Brassicaceae, which also includes horseradish and mustard in other genera. The plant is native to Japan and the Russ ...

, served in a crusty bap. The earliest example of the fish finger sandwich being created is probably during early 1981 when a nursing assistant, Dean Bevan (then Wilkinson), at the old county psychiatric hospital of St Audry's in Melton, Suffolk found that he regularly had a lot of fish fingers left over following serving the patients breakfast. He discovered that although fish fingers were not particularly popular as a breakfast food, nevertheless, the kitchen served them each morning. So, rather than throw them away he decided to try them as a sandwich snack for his colleagues. Initially they simply consisted of four fish fingers between two slices of white bread along with a little tomato ketchup. They eventually proved popular with nursing staff and it seems quite likely that news of this simple, tasty snack spread by word of mouth and became popular throughout the UK. Ref. D Bevan 1981

References

External links

Birds Eye Fish Finger Sandwich Awards 2017
Fish dishes Seafood sandwiches British sandwiches {{UK-cuisine-stub

See also

References

External links