It would be an ordinary fish fillet sandwich were it not for the coleslaw. The secret? Cream cheese in the dressing. There is a pineapple coleslaw recipe in the archive, a reader suggested adding blue cheese to it and that got me thinking. I don’t keep a regular supply of blue cheese but there’s always cream cheese in the fridge. Why not cream cheese? Amazingly, the coleslaw was transformed. And my rather plain fish fillet sandwich became something akin to gourmet stuff.
I suggest that you make the coleslaw first and keep it in the fridge while you fry the fish. That way, the fish will still be hot and crisp when you assemble the sandwich.
Makes about a cup of coleslaw enough to spread on four sandwiches.
Ingredients
- 2 to 2-1/2 c. of very finely shredded white cabbage
1 carrot, chopped
3 to 4 tbsps. of crushed pineapple, drained
1/4 c. of cream cheese, softened
2 to 3 tbsps. of mayonnaise
juice of 1/4 lemon
salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Heat about four cups of water in a pan. When boiling, add the shredded cabbage and chopped carrot. Allow to cook for two minutes. Drain, dump in a bowl of iced water and drain again. Squeeze out as much water as so you can. This will ensure that your coleslaw won’t turn watery later and make your sandwich soggy.
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, lemon juice, pineapple, salt and pepper until smooth. Add the cabbage and carrot mixture and toss to distribute evenly. Taste, adjust the seasonings, add some sugar if you like, then transfer to a bowl, cover and chill in the fridge.
To make four sandwiches with generous filling, you’ll need about 500 g. of fish fillet. If they are rather thick, slice them horizontally to make them thinner. There’s no real recipe for the fish fillet filling as it’s just a matter of seasoning the fish (salt, pepper and whatever herbs you like), dredging in a mixture of flour and yellow cornmeal and frying until crisp and golden.
After frying the fish, it’s assembly time.
Cut the crusts of eight slices of bread (you can keep the crusts, if you like), toast then lay on a flat surface. Place a fish fillet on a slice of bread, cover with the coleslaw and top with another slice of bread. Repeat. You can cut the sandwiches into two to three portions, in triangles or squares or rectangles, or you can serve them whole.
Cooking time (duration): 15 minutes
Number of servings (yield): 4
Meal type: lunch
I love fish taco and I’m sure I will
love this sandwich also.
A co-worker suggested to add beer on
the fish batter….haven’t tried it yet.
Hehe I’ve tried onion rings dipped in beer batter and it was fabulous.
Will try this PANINI style!
I could already imagine the cream cheese melting into goey deliciousness over the fish fillets!
…and since I love coleslaw and I wouldn’t be able to get enough of it in the sandwich to satisfy me, I will serve it as a side salad!
I really love your website. This recipe is very yummy.