Hello Again, Heartbreak Hill. Filet-O-Fish DIY.


It’s been a few weeks since I last caught up with my good friend, Heartbreak Hill.

Truth be told. it didn’t particularly miss me while I’d been away rehabilitating my dodgy pelvis.

I, on the other hand, was deliriously happy to be back.  So happy I ran myself a pretty good pace despite the heat.  I usually run this route first, first thing in the morning and that has its many joys.  The temperature, the freshness of the air, the quiet and the emptiness.

Running the hill and the bays around half seven in the morning also has its moments.  Some good, some not so much.  The good included being out there with like-minded active bodies and seeing my running landscape go through its daytime routine.  The cafes were lit up and their cabinets filled with baked goods.  The barber was open for business and its clients spilled out onto the bench out on the footpath.  The lush fields and imposing gates of the schools were open for business.  Sprightly bodies in coloured house shirts ran and kicked along the fields and hats bobbed along around me as backpacked bodies walked through the gates.  
It was the traffic that got to me.  It always does.  Stop starting along short stretches of my run as I obediently heeded the lights, having to remember to pause at driveways, trying to pace myself around the foot traffic that was doing things like walking and FaceTiming simultaneously.
I’ve also given up on sunglasses.  They kept bobbing out of time up over the bridge of my nose.  I’m going to have to find myself a cap with an even broader brim than the one I’m currently using instead.
But I loved it all and it was one of the most enjoyable runs I’ve had this year.  I’m hoping to schedule in a few more weekday runs like this over the next few months as I get ready for the City2Surf.   
After my run of the month, the obvious next step was a pit stop at my favourite local cafe for a large iced latte with skim milk.  I felt like such a rebel clutching that cup of dairy and sugar loaded espresso as everyone else around me had their black with sweetener or that random twist of lemon….

Image result for filet o fish
via Google images
Guess what the internet brought me several months back?  Not an actual Filet-O-Fish but the next best thing.  Nagi from Recipe Tin Eats’ oven baked version, the recipe for which can be found here.  If you’ve not made the recipe before and are an ardent fan of the FOF then be prepared to have your mind and tastebuds blown by it when you do.  

I used fillets of ling for the recipe.  I doubled up the thin tail segments of the fillet on top of each other when I baked so that the cooking time would be the same for all my fish ‘patties’. 
Being the cheese snob that I am, I didn’t use fully plastic cheese but rather slices of Cracker Barrel that were collectively but not individually wrapped in plastic.  They still melted on contact with the freshly baked fish and they tasted even better than the real deal.  All I lacked was the Maccas dayglow hues of the OG FOF.
This is what our assembled burgers looked like.  Not to bad for a debut attempt, I reckon.  Even more successful than my maiden attempt at chicken burgers.  I over toasted my brioche though.
This is the brand of brioche buns I used.  They are available at Woolies and were the perfect size for my fish fillets.

Because I have a picky eater in the house, I didn’t make Nagi’s tartare sauce.  We just had mayo and ketchup with our burgers.  I got the ketchup thing from my mum.  She loves Filet-O-Fishes but will only eat them with the tartare sauce subbed out and the ketchup subbed in.  I am my mother’s daughter in so many ways.
This is my gratuitous cross-sectional photo of my burger.  I can’t get over how easy it was to make such a delicious and relatively healthy Maccas dupe. 

You wouldn’t by any chance have a recipe for a DIY healthier Big Mac or Quarter Pounder handy would you?  Or perhaps I should see if Nagi can help…



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