There is nothing like homemade fish and chips for lunch on a lazy Sunday. Sapporo beer battered fish and hand cut chips actually. Sounds fancy but it’s not that hard to make when you have fresh ingredients, particularly fresh flathead fillets which were sourced from Northside Seafood Suppliers, a supplier of seafood to the chefs of Mr Wong’s and other Sydney restaurants that are seeking only the finest and freshest seafood in Sydney. My mother tells me the best way to do fish and chips is to keep it simple: there’s only 3 ingredients: plain flour, beer (I used Sapporo which was in my fridge and premium Japanese beer) and cold water before you deep fry it in vegetable oil. My mother says the beer makes the fried fish crispier and less soggy and crispy this was.
Some interesting things about ‘fish and chips’: According to the BBC, former British prime minister Winston Churchill famously called fish and chips the ‘good companions’. A 2010 celebration of the iconic dish by the Independent newspaper revealed the dish to be more iconic to England than the Queen or The Beatles. Wherever fish and chips were serendipitously coupled, both pre-date Lees and Malin. It was in the 16th Century that Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Portugal and Spain landed in London, bringing with them a taste for fried fish. Former US president, Thomas Jefferson wrote about eating “fried fish in the Jewish fashion” after a visit to the English capital in the end of the 18th Century. And in 1837, Charles Dickens, in his London-based novel Oliver Twist, refers to a “fried fish warehouse”, the forerunner to the modern chippie where bread or baked potatoes were served alongside the fish.
Turning to the origin of chips, historians credit Belgian housewives in the 1680s with this culinary invention. When the Meuse River froze during winter, resourceful women fried potatoes in place of scarcely available fish. By the 1830s, the imported staple of fried potatoes was implanted firmly among London’s poor. Cut to 1860 and England’s first chip shop opened on the present day site of Tommyfield Market in the town of Oldham, 350km north of London. Fish and chips was also commonly served in newspaper (probably to soak up the oil) but with the rise of the digital age and decline of the newspaper, this is now less common.
Here is a modified version of beer battered fish and chips from Good Food. Enjoy!
Ingredients
4 large desiree potatoes, peeled
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 bottle beer, chilled
About 2L vegetable oil, for deep-frying salt, for seasoning
4 large flathead fillets (about 125g each)
Salad greens (Greek salad is my favourite with fish and chips), lemon wedges and tartare sauce, to serve
For the chips
1. Peel the potatoes and cut into thick chips. Soak in cold water for 30 minutes.* Drain and transfer to a pot with two litres of fresh cold water and add the white vinegar. Bring to a low simmer, then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain the chips and arrange on a baking tray. Dry the chips in a low oven (about 60C, fan-forced) for 30 minutes.
2. For the beer batter, combine 1 1/2 cups of flour with the beer and stir to combine to a thick batter. Don’t mix the batter too much. A few lumps is fine. Rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
3. Heat the oil to 200C and fry the chips in batches for three minutes each, allowing the oil to return to temperature between batches. Drain the chips on a wire rack or absorbent paper, uncovered for 20 minutes. You can freeze the chips at this point for frying later.
4. When ready to serve, fry the chips again at 200C for a further three minutes until golden brown. Toss the chips with plenty of salt and keep warm in the oven while you cook the fish.
* Soaking removes excess starch and stops the potato straws from sticking together and becoming gluggy when they are cooked.
For the fish
5. Reduce the heat of the oil to 180C. Dust the flathead fillets lightly with the reserved flour and dip into the batter. Shake off any excess batter and fry the fish for about four minutes until the batter is golden. Drain on a wire rack and season with salt.
6. Serve the fish and chips with wedges of lemon, tartare sauce and an undressed crisp green salad.
