Cajun Fish Rolls With Vegetable Sticks and Fried Courgette Flowers

Here I am with some more fish fillets. As the only fish eater in the house, not counting our Mr. Peabody, I go wild and I try to prepare them in a thousand different ways. Fish is light, healthy and delicious. In spring I like to accompany it to seasonal vegetables, in winter I prepare delicious fish soups, in the summer I prefer it in a sauce for pasta. One thing I regret is that I do not like shellfish. I find it so beautiful and versatile yet their flavour is not really my thing, and so I am left with white fish, preferably sea fish.

The recipe that I propose below is very simple and consists of several elements and different textures. A light meal, despite the fried courgette flowers, slightly hot and fully spicy. The fish and vegetables in the roll are soft and delicate, the courgette flowers are crisp and tasty just like the sautéed vegetables and the little fritters. Serve with a fresh salad topped with a tasty vinaigrette, wholemeal bread or a nice piece of focaccia and you got a good meal that is really very, very satisfying!

Don’t give you the amounts for the ingredients because they depends on how many rolls you want to make and on the size of the vegetables at your disposal. Here, however, are the ingredients and the steps to make this dish:
•fish fillets
•courgettes cut into sticks
•carrots cut into sticks
•yellow pepper cut into strips
•courgette flowers
•extra virgin olive oil
•vegetable oil for frying

For the batter:
•flour
•cajun spices
•salt
•1 pinch of baking powder
•cold water

Step 1:

Cut the vegetables into strips except the courgette flowers.

Step 2:

Make a batter with flour, spices, salt and cold water.

Step 3:

Put some water in a small pot and bring to a boil, add a pinch of salt and blanch the courgettes and carrots for 3 minutes, drain and cooled under a stream of cold water. Drain and dry with paper towels.

Step 4:

Season the fish fillets with a pinch of salt and sprinkle with Cajun spices. Turn the fish fillets and place 3 courgette sticks, 3 carrot sticks and 2 pepper strips each of them. Roll the fillets and close with 1 or 2 toothpicks. I also secure some of them with these small silicone strips and I noticed that those closed in the latter way were cooked better and retained their shape. Those secured with toothpicks broke in several pieces!

Step 5:

Put a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil in a pan and when hot put in the fish and cook along with the leftover vegetables sticks. Gently turn the fish rolls and cook evenly.

Step 6:

In the meantime heat some vegetable oil in a small frying pan add the baking powder to the batter, batter the courgette flowers and fry them, also fry the remaining batter by the spoonful in order to get little fritters you’ll serve with your fish.

Step 7:

Drain the fried flowers and fritters on absorbent paper, compose the dish with your fish rolls lying on the courgette flowers, add some spicy fritters and some stir-fried vegetables.