Battered fish with quinoa and yogurt tartar sauce with roasted sweet potato

Carolina, from La Cocina de Carolina, brings us an everyday recipe you'll enjoy for its simplicity and different twist: make a battered hake fillet with quinoa, a healthy way to bring a coating to the table; she pairs it with roasted sweet potato. Easy and impressive, you'll love it with a touch of tartar sauce.

Battered fish is one of the easiest ways to get kids to eat fish; however, we usually prepare it the same way, breaded in egg and flour and then fried in oil. This recipe I show you is a very original way to make the classic breaded fish; in fact you can adapt it to any type of coating, whether meat, vegetables or fish.

Instead of coating with bread or flour, we'll use puffed quinoa flakes. If you've never seen them, they're like classic puffed rice cereals but instead of rice, quinoa. You can buy them at any health food or organic food store. The sauce is a tartar made with yogurt instead of mayonnaise, which makes it healthier and suitable for kids.

Ingredients

For the fish:
1.5 kgs of sweet potatoes peeled and cut like french fries
3 garlic cloves with their skins
A handful of lemon thyme leaves
Salt and pepper
60 ml of extra virgin olive oil
15ml of sesame oil (optional)
2 eggs
2 extra garlic cloves crushed
2 teaspoons of lemon zest
170 g of quinoa
800 g of hake fillet cut into 6-8 pieces
Lemon slices to serve

For the yogurt tartar:
140 g of natural Greek yogurt
½ cup of pickles diced very small
1 tablespoon of capers, drained and finely chopped
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 200ºC.

Put the sweet potato together with the garlic cloves in a ceramic baking dish for the oven and sprinkle with salt, pepper, the lemon thyme and a couple of tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Roast for about 25-30 minutes or until golden and crispy.

Microplane Zester Grater

While the sweet potatoes are in the oven we'll bread the fish. To do so beat the eggs together with the chopped garlic, zest of lemon, salt and pepper in a large bowl. Dip the fish in the egg and immediately coat it with the quinoa, breading on all sides.

Fry the fish in a nonstick frying pan with hot oil, turning each side for about 4-6 minutes until crispy and golden on the outside. If you like, we can make the coating by adding a little sesame oil to the olive oil — it will give a different touch and make it even tastier.

Emile Henry ceramic baking dish and Bra Infinity nonstick frying pan

Prepare the yogurt tartar sauce by mixing the capers, pickles, lemon thyme and a splash of lemon, salt and pepper.

Serve everything together on a platter as a combined plate. For kids you can make the sauce without capers or pickles, just the yogurt. They'll love it!