Fillet o’ Fish Burger

I don't often make fish burgers, but when I do, I just love them. So I'm going to do a rendition of a very famous takeaway fillet of fish burger. It is super delicious. And of course, they always taste better when you make it at home. Now, I'm not going to deep fry mine. I'm actually going to use the air fryer, which gives you fantastic results. So we'll start with the batter for the fish. I've got some plain flour. To this, I'm going to add some onion powder and some garlic powder. These are two ingredients I always have in my pantry. They really come in handy when you want to add extra flavour to batters just like this. We'll give that a really quick whisk. And I'll also add a pinch of salt too. Now, make a little well in the centre. And just like you were doing a pancake batter or a crepe batter, we'll add an egg to the centre. And we'll just break that up and just slowly, slowly bring in the sides. And I'll add some water. So we've got about half a cup of flour to about half a cup of water. But we'll just see the consistency. You want it to be slightly thinner than pancake batter. So I'll keep whisking that. And that's looking quite good. I'll just add a little more of that water just to thin it out. It's best to add less and then add some more just so we get it completely right. If it's too thin, then it won't stick onto the fish. But if it's too thick, it'll be stodgy. So that is absolutely perfect. OK, we'll start a bit of a production line here. We've got our batter and then we've got our crumbs. I'm using panko crumbs for this just because I want it to be super crispy. Now, the fish that I'm using, this is ling. You can get some rock ling, some pink ling. It's a fantastic fish to batter and fry or air fry. You could also use snapper fillets. Flathead works really well too. So working with one medallion at a time, we'll plunge it into our batter and just allow that excess to just drip off. It's looking good. Then into the crumb and then we're going to coat that quite generously with our crumb. Sprinkle that over the top. OK, first one done. And the next one into the batter and shake the excess off and then into our crumb. OK, now you don't need too much oil. You just need an even amount of oil. So I'm just going to use some spray oil. We'll just spray that over the top. All right, that's looking good. So now it goes into the basket of the airfryer. Just carefully transfer it over. And this is nonstick, so it's not going to stick to the bottom at all. And just make sure that there's a bit of separation between each fillet of fish. That goes in. And I'm going to cook this on the fish function, which will take about 10 minutes at 200 degrees. I'm just going to make sure I keep an eye on it. About halfway through, check them, just making sure that they're golden brown. While they're cooking, I'll get onto the mayonnaise. First up, I'm going to finely chop some gherkins and some capers. All right, let's have a look at them. Look at that, crispy and golden brown. And a fillet of fish burger is not complete without some cheese. So American-style cheese, and it needs to be melted. So because the airfryer is so hot in there, the residual heat will melt this cheese perfectly. So we won't turn it back on. We'll just pop that basket back in and just let that sit there for a moment to melt. Okay, the all-important sauce. This is a combination of mayonnaise. I've added some American mustard, some capers that have been finely chopped, and a pickle or a gherkin. And the trick to this is to add some of the pickling liquid. So about a tablespoon or so, and that'll just give it an extra zing. All right, we'll give that one last stir. And for the buns, I've just cut them in half. I've also steamed them so they get that really soft, fluffy texture that we're after. So we'll just open that up. All right, let's see if this cheese is melted. Ah, perfect. We'll grab one of the fillets straight onto the bun. And the sauce goes on the top. And you can be quite generous with the sauce. I'm going to place it onto the cheese. Look at that. Just let it cascade over the edges. That on top. And that's my version of a fillet of fish. All right, let's just squish that down. For taste, of course. It's really, really good, particularly with that steamed bun. And I tell you what, cooking crumbed fish in the air fryer works so well. In fact, it's even crispier. Oh, that is a seriously good burger.