Absolutely Fabulous Fish and Chips

I included this clip from Absolutely Fabulous because:

1.  The show is brilliant

2.  New episodes in February!!!

3.  A segue to today’s blog topic. 

Yesterday we saw Iron Lady and I made fish and chips.  It was English Saturday.  Quite right.  I was disappointed with the Iron Lady.  Meryl Streep was totally convincing as Margaret Thatcher, but telling a story through Alzheimer flashbacks is a little odd, sad and slightly disrespectful.  No matter what you feel about Thatcher, nobody deserves to have their Alzheimer’s be the focus of their life story.  Absolute tosh.

I gotta say…the fish and chips I made were surprisingly good.  Totally pub quality.  My kitchen, however, was a complete disaster.  Blimey! It was probably due to the fact that I was imbibing beer in my pub kitchen and was rat arsed when I fried up dinner.   The flavor of the food was worth the mess though.  Here’s how I made my fish and chips.  O’righty then!

Absolutely Fabulous Fish and Chips

I sliced the potatoes before taking this picture to give you
an idea about strip sizes.

Ingredients

1 pound white cod fillets

2 cups of flour

1 egg

5 oz of milk

5 oz of beer (I used Sam Adams Boston Lager)

Salt and pepper

4 to 5 medium Idaho potatoes

Oil

Malt vinegar

Tartar sauce

A roll of paper towels!

Preparation

Open up two bottles of Sam Adams Boston Lager.  Sit one aside to use in batter and start drinking the other one.  Rinse and peel your potatoes.  Cut them lengthwise into ½” strips.  Put strips in a large microwave-safe bowl, add about ¼ cup of oil and salt to taste.  Toss the potatoes with your hands.   Put a paper towel over the bowl and put in the microwave for about 5 to 6 minutes until potatoes are pliable.  Rinse potato strips again and place on paper towels to dry.  Open yourself another beer.

Heat up your oil to 375 degrees.  I used a Cool Daddy. Cut your fish fillets into 2-3” strips.  Rinse and place on paper towel.  Combine salt, pepper and flour in a bowl.  Mix the egg and milk in a separate bowl.  Pour the egg and milk mixture into the bowl with the flour, salt and pepper and mix.  Add beer and a fair amount of malt vinegar to mixture.  Open another beer to drink.

Heat oven to 300 degrees. Once oil has reached appropriate temperature, add your potato strips.  Fry for 2 minutes and remove from grease and place on paper towel.  Salt the potatoes again.  Using tongs dredge your fish strips in the batter.  Place in the fryer for about 6 to 7 minutes or until golden brown.  Remove from grease and place on a paper towel.  Put fish in the oven to keep warm.  Put your potato strips back in the grease and fry for an additional 3 minutes.  Remove from grease, place on paper towel and salt again.  Plate chips with fish, serve with tartar sauce or malt vinegar and presto you have fish and chips!  Open yourself another beer and eat.