Savoury Crumble to use with fish

trihere

Hi all
I'm new to this forum so excuse me if this has been discussed before.
The OH and myself had a meal in a pub the other night which was white fish and spinach in a white sauce topped with a savoury crumble, when I tried to make this at home Disaster!!! the crumble soaked up all the sauce ending in a soggy mess.
Any sugesstions on where I'm going wrong please?
Regards Ray

Bogof_Babe

Tell us what you did (ncluding ingredients and timings) and we'll see if we can spot any obvious flaws in your method.

trihere

Hi
Thanks for a prompt reply
First I steam cooked the fish and spinach,placed them in individual pie dishes .heated up some Schwartz fish sauce placed the crubble mix over each of them (8oz plain flour, 4oz butter,3oz cheese plus a few mixed herbs ) then cooked in the oven 170c for approx 20 minutes.
Regards Ray

Bogof_Babe

So you poured the fish sauce over the cooked fish, then put the crumble mix on top? Hmm, sounds reasonable to me. I wonder if the sauce was too thin or too hot, which might explain why the crumble disappeared into it.

Don't you usually have breadcrumbs in savoury crumble topping? Maybe that would have helped it to bind together better and stop it sinking down.

Come on everyone else, I'm floundering here (no pun intended, lol) :rotfl:

fudgem

I can't see any problem with this, except as you say, the sauce may have been a bit thin. The crumble recipe is fine, doesn't normally contain breadcumbs, and shouldn't have gone soggy, but maybe the oven wasn't hot enough. I would normally cook crumble at 190

Just spotted there may have been a bit too much fat in that crumble, you have actually got 7 oz of fat to 8 oz flour which is probably a bit too much. Cut your butter down to 2 oz, or mix the cheese into the sauce before putting it on the fish

QMABB

When I do a topping for fish pie just use half breadcrumbs half cheese and it comes out nice and crunchy

bltchef

hi the crumble topping is a mix of breadcrumbs and flavouring eg chesse , pesto, fresh herbs garlic lemon etc. then you can sprean some mustard of you fish not english mustard to strong dijon is ok or course grain. then press you bread crumb topping on to the fish roast in the oven at 160 till cooked 5 7 min and serve if you need any more info let me know

shell2001

So I have made the filling for my fish crumble, but what is the best "crumble" to use? The pastry type or just breadcrumbs and herbs?

Mrs_pbradley936

I like to use at least some breadcrumbs in a savoury crumble. The very best (but not on fish, but I've never tried it) is to dice and fry streaky bacon and mix that with breadcrumbs real breadcrumbs not the dust that you get if shop bought.

shell2001

Always do our own breadcrumbs, never trusted those orange colour type sawdust you buy is shakers from the supermarket. Only time I used them was when we had to make scotch eggs at school.

So guess I am gonna do the flour, butter, herbs and some breadcrumbs. Guess the proof will be in the eating!