Food and Travel & Food and Travel
Crisp beer-battered cod with thick golden skin-on chips on cream paper and a lemon wedge
main British

Restaurant-style fish and chips

Briefly cured cod, cold beer-and-rice-flour batter, and rough-edged triple-cooked chips make a crisp British plate that stays light rather than greasy.

Prep40 min
Cook55 min
Rest60 min
Servings4
Cook mode

Adapted for the home kitchen from Fallow's restaurant fish and chips

Ingredients

Written for a 7 L pot

Units
Servings
4

Chips

  • 1 1/6 kg floury potatoes, scrubbed
  • 2 L neutral frying oil
  • 12 g fine salt

Fish and cure

  • 800 g skinless cod or haddock fillet, cut into 4 portions
  • 30 g fine salt for cure
  • 9 g caster sugar for cure
  • 1 lemon, finely grated zest only
  • 60 g seasoned plain flour, for dusting

Beer batter

  • 150 g plain flour
  • 75 g rice flour
  • 8 g baking powder
  • 4 g fine salt
  • 200 ml cold lager
  • 100 ml ice-cold sparkling water

Method

  1. Cut potatoes into thick chips and rinse. Cover with cold salted water, bring to a boil, and stir firmly once to roughen the edges. Simmer until tender but intact, 8 to 12 minutes. Drain onto a rack and chill until dry.
  2. Mix cure salt, sugar, and lemon zest. Coat fish evenly for 10 minutes, then rinse under cold water and dry thoroughly.
  3. Heat oil to 140°C in a deep pot no more than halfway full. Fry chips in batches for 6 minutes to set a pale crust. Drain and cool.
  4. Whisk plain flour, rice flour, baking powder, and salt. Just before frying, whisk in cold lager and sparkling water; a few small lumps are fine.
  5. Raise oil to 180°C. Dust fish lightly with seasoned flour, dip in batter, let excess fall away, and lower carefully into the oil. Drizzle a little extra batter over the top for craggy flakes. Fry 6 to 8 minutes until deep gold and the fish reaches 63°C. Drain on a rack.
  6. Fry chips again at 185°C for 2 to 4 minutes until crisp. Drain, salt, and serve immediately with fish.

Notes

  • Mix batter at the last moment and keep it cold; warm, overmixed batter turns bready.
  • Keep wet fish and water away from hot oil. Do not fill the pot more than halfway and fry in small batches.
  • For alcohol-free batter, replace lager with additional very cold sparkling water.

Sources used

Good with

Sources consulted

Fallow gives the cure ratio and process but not a complete batch; the batter is reconstructed for four fillets.

From Christoph Mayer

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