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Help me make Fish & Chips

Tommyboy

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Dec 10, 2009
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14,260
Location
NY
American here, looking for some help from those of you that grew up on this dish....

I've finally got my family to agree to let me make some Fish & Chips for dinner, so I am here to ask some questions about cooking it. I am making it this Saturday, so we've got a few days to go over this. I am planning on buying cod for this, and I live by the water and it is in season, so it will be fresh.
Here are my questions:
  • What type of oil should I use
  • Is beer batter the way to go, and if so, what type of beer should I use
  • What's a good way to cut and prepare the potatoes before frying, and do I peel them
  • Should I buy malt vinegar for this or can I make my red wine vinegar work

I've been excited to make this since we were talking about it here, and it was on a cooking show today so my mom started to get the craving for it too. On the cooking show the lady didn't use beer in her batter, but I plan on doing so. As for the potatoes, she cut them in wedges and baked them with olive oil and rosemary, but that seems like blasphemy, so I would like to do it the traditional way instead of some of the Americanized ways that I have seen it.

Thanks
 
Are you going to use like proper hot fat? If you want the full on chippy effect, cut them in chunky rectangles and drop them in hot sunflower oil. As far as i'm aware red wine vinegar wouldn't be a good replacement for malt vinegar. I'm not a massive fan of beer batter either. All it seems to do it make the batter worse, and it doesn't taste like beer. It seems like a bit of a novelty to me, but then I might not have had good beer batter.
 
People here rarely make their own fish & chips at home, deep fat fryers have gone out of fashion & its a lot of hassle.

But to tell you what i know, you need a flavourless oil able to get to a high temp - here we would use vegetable or sunflower oil.

Don't know about beer batter - maybe google a recipe.

Peel the potatoes, slice them lengthways however thick cut you want your chips, i'd say approx 1.5cm thick, and then slice these rounds into sticks, again about 1.5cm wide.

Definitley malt vinegar, and lots of salt.

Good luck!
 
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HaHa i just got back from the chippy !

I personally don't know anyone that cooks their own Fish n Chips .
It's more of a traditional take away .
Malt Vinegar all the way n Sun Flower oil not olive oil .

Sure theirs some crazy mofos that make their own Fish suppers .
Fresh Cod :)
it's all in the batter .
Good luck !
 
Cant beat it directly from the chippy, theres something magic in there like KFC's secret recipe, it cant be recreated!!!
 
Cant beat it directly from the chippy, theres something magic in there like KFC's secret recipe, it cant be recreated!!!

Do they use beef dripping over in Manchester? You can't get a chippy in Leeds that isn't cooked in that stuff.
 
If you're vegetarian or can't get dripping, vegetable oil is fine. Peel the potatoes and slice the chips as thick or as thin as you like and deep fry in a chip pan. Gas is easier to get the correct heat. Use paper kitchen towels to remove any excess grease after cooking. No, wine vinegar doesn't do it, invest in some malt. Not a fan of beer batter, either, but, if it's to your taste, enjoy. Serve with mushy peas. A fortune awaits the gourmet who brings that gastronomic delight to the U.S.

Harm reduction at its finest. Got me fancying a portion right now, wish there were 24 hour chippies.
 
Do they use beef dripping over in Manchester? You can't get a chippy in Leeds that isn't cooked in that stuff.

No. Maybe some of the mill towns closer to the Yorkshire border do, but you can smell it a mile off when they do. It's something we always joke with Yorkshire folk about - "your chippies stink". :D

I'm firmly in the sunflower oil camp - beef dripping just doesn't cut it, and I thought that before I was a vegetarian. As did several generations of people before WWII, despite what some revisionists like to make people believe.
 
double fry your chips!
...is the key.

First fry should be to primarily soften them (sacrifice one or two by squeezing them to check - obviously, not with your bare hands) and also put some light colour on them.

Leave to cool.

Then hit them with a second fry to crisp them up and darken the colour.

A lot of chippies fail to do this these days. Run by drooling amateurs.

You should also try to keep the thickness of the chips consistent, so that they cook though equally. Lengthways cutting with 15mm thickness sounds about right. You will encounter a lot of wastage, but they're only potatoes. And yes, peeling them is essential. Maris Piper or King Edwards usually work.

Oil should be veg/sunflower oil.

If you're cooking for an American family who needed to be convinced by this... you might want to go for a beer batter for the fish, just to lighten it up.

Red wine vinegar... LOL. Fuck off. :D

Serve in newspaper for authentic 1980's feel (or pretentious foodie nostalgia).
 
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