“Fish” & Chips with Tartare Sauce & Mushy Minted Peas

Today I’ve tried out another recipe from Gaz Oakley's Vegan 100 - “Fish” & Chips with Tartare Sauce & Mushy Minted Peas AKA ‘Tofush’ & Chips. This is something I’ve had before in restaurants, but not a dish I'd ever tried at home, so when I saw the recipe I thought I would have to give it a go.

For the chips:

5 medium Maris Piper potatoes

2 tbsp. plain flour

4 tbsp. olive oil

Pinch sea salt & pepper

For the “fish”:

Approximately 1 litre sunflower oil

1 x 300g firm tofu block, drained and excess water removed

1 large (20 x 18cm) sheet of nori

Juice of 1 lemon

50g plain flour

50g cornflour

75ml vegan beer

75ml soda water

Pinch of sea salt

For the mushy peas:

Olive oil for front

2 shallots, finely chopped

300g frozen peas

235ml vegetable stock

2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

1 tbsp. finely chopped mint

Pinch salt & pepper

For the tartare sauce:

250g mayonnaise (recipe also in Vegan 100 but I was lazy and used Hellmann's Vegan Mayo...)

3 tbsp. capers, drained and roughly chopped

3 tbsp. roughly chopped gherkins

1 small shallot, finely chopped

1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

3 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Pinch salt & pepper

You can find the full method below:

https://www.avantgardevegan.com/recipes/gazs-fish-chips/

Again, this was a relatively quick dish to make, despite there being quite a few ingredients! Did this have the texture of battered fish as I remember? No, but I think by using nori sheets and lemon, this definitely worked as a great alternative, especially with the mushy peas and tartare sauce, making it feel a lot more authentic. I did however find it quite difficult to get the sheets to properly stick to the tofu, even with adding lemon juice, so I found parts of the tofu were coated, and others not. I think this is one I need to work on a bit more and maybe tweak the seasoning, but for a first attempt I'm not too disappointed!