Fish and Chips. I’ve always liked that combination. Fish fillets fried in batter with fries (or chips, or potato wedges, doesn’t matter which one) was a favorite of mine when I was younger. I remember back in college one of my favorite things to eat on the McDonald’s menu was the Fillet O’Fish, because it had the same style/flavor as fish and chips (especially if you order it with a side of fries of course). It’s too bad that they stopped selling that years ago because that was the only thing I used to order at McDonald’s back then.
I’ve always wanted to try and cook this, but I have never been confident about making something that was cooked/deep-fried with batter. I know it’s supposed to be crispy, and I’ve had my doubts about whether I could make that happen. I have probably collected around five different recipes for fish and chips through the years because of how much I’ve wanted to make them. I finally decided to choose one recipe from the site Recipe Tin Eats and made it for my family one weekend. Luckily for me, it was a big success!
Given that this recipe is available on the Recipe Tin Eats website, separately labeled as Beer Battered Fish and French Fries, I will not be sharing them on this post. You can check out the site for more information. I will, however, be sharing the videos of both here. Both are also from the same site’s YouTube channel.
Unlike a couple of the other recipes I have shared recently here on the blog, I have followed the recipe exactly as instructed because I got all the ingredients I needed. The only difference was that I used cream dory fish instead of the list of recommended fish on the site because that was what was readily available.
I even followed the instructions about the temperature of the oil to use when frying, along with the whole double-frying for both the fish and the fries. Those little tips and tricks were probably the things that helped me the most. It felt a little bit of extra work (like dusting the fish in rice flour before dipping it in the batter and making sure that you do not whisk the batter too much and keep it in a certain consistency) but it did make the entire dish better than I expected it would turn out. I think that following the instructions exactly as given was what made the dish a success for me.
For the fries, I followed the instructions and made my own. I bought whole potatoes instead of those ready-to-fry ones from the supermarket's frozen section. I cut them to size (without soaking, just rinsing) according to the instructions including using a serrated knife. I boiled them in a mixture of water, vinegar, and salt before draining them to fry using the double-frying method shown on the site. It was interesting how these little things helped make the fries very crispy. I also sprinkled everything with salt as the site suggested. The family couldn’t stop commenting on how it was just right, I was so happy about it!
With the beer-battered fish, I simply followed the instructions with the dusting, batter, and double-frying. It was a lot of work and took a lot longer than I expected, but like the fries, the fish ended up very crispy and had good color. My family was very happy with it and couldn’t wait to dig in!
If there was anything that I would have done differently it would have to be the dip for the fish and fries. The recipe suggested using Tartare sauce, but I opted for mayonnaise mixed with garlic powder (instead of using minced garlic – I already had a lot to do and wanted to be lazy with one little thing, can you blame me?). It was a good combination and my sister liked the idea of using the powder instead of the minced garlic since it had the same flavor, but I am guessing that Tartare would have been a better dip for this than that.
If anyone out there is going to try making some fish and chips, the site Recipe Tin Eats is the best place to go. Follow the instructions and you will not regret the result!
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