Fish & Chips

So here's a classic one. The staple of the British diet, and certainly my teenage diet. At least once a week after classes at High School, I would go to the local fish & chip shop where my Chinese friend worked part time to get cod & chips or sausage & chips. After devouring the battered protein, I would sprinkle a huge amount of table salt, black pepper and malt vinegar all over my chips, give them a shake and eat them whilst walking home. Yummy. 

I know first hand how greasy and oily this dish can be and I really dislike deep frying do it has been a while since I've cooked this at home. Why bother, when you can get very good fish & chips at the local 'chippy' or a nearby restaurant/pub? 

But this time I bought whiting fillets from Abel & Cole with the sole purpose of making fish & chips. The A&C website says there are between 2-4 fillets per pack, I ended up with three fillets, and when you're cooking for two, that's annoying! The fillets themselves are quite wide, which meant I had to cook one fillet at a time, and a bit heavy so I pictured lots of oil splashing everywhere as I lift them out. So I decided to cut them in half down the back bone ridge, well I didn't even need to use a knife as they came apart quite easily. This meant I had six half fillets, great, three each then. Or rather two point five for me and three point five for Byron ;). 

The chips are the make or fail part of this dish- you have to get them right. They can't be skinny fries, they need to be fat 'proper chips', mine are about an inch thick - more thumb sized than finger sized. I twice cooked these chips, ie parboil then bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes turning once. I have to parboil them because I don't like soggy chips (unless they're soggy with vinegar...) and the only way to get the outsides crispy with the insides cooked the healthy way is to parboil and bake them. 

The batter is the next most important part, if the the most important part of this dish. Of course, I made a beer batter using a bottle of lager. It's the carbonation of the liquid that create a light and crispy batter, I could have chosen ale, but generally lager has more carbonation than ale. Ale does, however provide a much better flavoured batter. I also added a bit of cornflour to the batter for added crispy-ness. What you end up with is this light, delicious golden coated fish. The batter cooks long enough to cook the fish without overcooking the batter.

I was starting to feel like I was sweating fat by the time I started deep frying the fish, so I decided to make a quick Fennel & Orange salad in between cooking the fish. The salad is ridiculously simple, and can be mixed with the olives in my Orange & Olive salad that I served with the tagine, as the flavours blend well together. I don't particularly like fennel that much, but I have to say the acidity of the orange matches the aniseed flavour of the fennel so it balances out in your mouth. 

 

I had also heard about fennel frond tempura, which I thought was a great way of using up the green feather-like leaves that sprout out of the top of the fennel bulb. I dipped those into the same beer batter as the fish and waited for them to float to the top of the oil. They were delicious and would definitely be a good addition to baked/steamed fish. 

I served my fish and chips with a quarter of lemon, pepper liberally sprinkled over the chips and a good dollap of store-bought tartare sauce. I did think about making my own tartare but by this point the house smelt like a chippy and I was dying to get stuck in. A note to make the tartare sauce first next time...

And before anyone says anything, yes I missed out the mushy peas. I'm sorry, ok!

Ingredients
Whiting fillets (~1 fillet per person)
~1kg of Potatoes, scrubbed and cut into 1 inch chips
1 lemon
vegetable Oil (make sure you use an oil with a high heating temperature, sunflower, rapeseed..etc)

for the beer batter
5 tbsp corn Flour
1 cup plain Flour
330ml bottle Heineken
2 tbsp Vinegar
Salt & Pepper

for the orange & fennel salad

1 bulb Fennel with frond removed and put to one side, sliced

2 Oranges, segmented

2 fillets anchovies, finely sliced

olive Oil

balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Recipe

Start off by making the beer batter to enable it to sit for a few minutes. Mix all the ingredients together until free of lumps and you reach a thick creamy texture. 

Chop potatoes and lay flat onto a baking tray, make sure you arrange them neatly so they all cook at the same time. Sprinkle salt, pepper, paprika (if you like some heat), and olive oil. Put them on a high shelf in a hot oven for 40 minutes, turning every 10 minutes or so. 

Prepare fish if necessary, I had to remove a few tiny bones from my fish. Add to batter and put to one side. Pour 500ml oil into sturdy bottomed saucepan and heat. I put a piece of potato in with my oil - when the potato rises to the surface, the oil is hot enough to use. If you have kids, this is when they are banned from the kitchen.

Make a dressing for your salad with the anchovies, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper. Drizzle over your orange and fennel pieces, mix and put in the fridge until ready to use.

When oil is hot enough, add fish fillets in- don't overcrowd them and watch out for splashes. Cook for 7 minutes, remove and set aside on a kitchen towel. The fillets should be golden brown in colour. Once finished, dip fennel fronds into the batter and cook in the oil for ~1 minute. 

Assemble dish with cooked fish, chips and fennel frond 'tempura', add a dollap of tartare sauce and a quater lemon for the fish. Eat.