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Okay so today we're going to make a classic traditional fish and chips
with one of my favorite fish; cod.
The first thing you need to do is to get the chips on,
you want to simmer them for about 5 minutes, drain them and let them
cool naturally in the air before we fry them. The best thing to do
is to do that a couple of hours before, because I think it's nicer to
have a dry chip before you put it in the fryer, and you get a crispy finish.
So put the potatoes in to the cold water, the reason for that,
if you put them into hot boiling water, you end up with all the potatoes breaking
and still raw in the center. We want them cooked right through.
The next thing we're going to do is make the tartar sauce, the first thing to do is make a classic
mayonnaise. Now mayonnaise's are emulsions, so you're emulsifying
egg yolk with acid and oil.
You have to make sure you do it slowly at first otherwise you will split
the ingredients.
Firstly you split your eggs
We've got 3 egg yolks
and we need to take our english mustard
a couple of dashes of white wine vinegar
Now obviously whisking by hand
is quite an arduous job, so to help you, the best thing to do
is to get a wet tea towel and form a little circle
and that'll hold the bowl in place
so it gives you a free hand to put your oil in.
So slowly we add the oil a few drops at a time
if you were to split it, basically you take the split
ingredients, get a fresh egg yolk and put it into a new bowl
with a little dash of vinegar and start the whole process again
adding the split mixture and you'll have success with a freshly emulsified mayonnaise.
So that's all the oil incorporated
and what you're looking for is the consistency of very thick custard.
If you like it a little bit thicker you can add more oil
if you like it a little bit looser you just add less oil.
So once you've got your mayonnaise made to the consistency you like
the next thing we need to do is chop the capers
and the gherkins and get the herbs in there.
Which is the tarragon, the chervil, the parsley and the chives
and you're going to add all of them into the mayonnaise.
Sometimes when you add the ingredients to the mayonnaise
the vinegar will let the mayonnaise down so you may have to
add a little bit more oil to it.
Ok, so at this point we need to add the salt and pepper.
So, the most important part is to taste the tartar sauce.
If you're happy with it, get it in the fridge until we've finished cooking.
So whist you're making the tartar sauce keep an eye on your chips
When you insert your knife it's a little bit soft but still a little bit of firmness.
When you get to that stage, it's about 6 minutes, you're going to take them off,
drain them, and put them on to a tray to cool down.
Next thing is the beer batter. So we've got some flour, sugar
and some fresh yeast and also some Doom bar beer
which is one of my favorites. You can use larger or any other beer
but Doom bar is for me.
So, firstly you add the flour and the sugar
then we crumble in our fresh yeast
and then gently we add the beer.
What you're after is nice smooth batter. If you added all the beer at once
you wouldn't get a chance to make paste first.
You're after a paste first otherwise you end up with lumps
Finally we add a little bit of salt
and a touch of pepper.
Then we cover that with a tea towel and leave it for 10 minutes
before we cook with it.
The reason why I like cod for fish and chips is
because it has lovely, white, flaky, pearly,
sort of flesh and it works very well with fish and chips.
Ok so this is how you may get your fish from the fishmongers
at this stage you may still have the skin on it
and you'll still have a few pin bones in there that you really want to remove,
because they will get stuck in your throat so an easy way to do that without a struggle
with pliers, but cut them out. With fish and chips that is perfectly acceptable.
And to skin it, I'll show you now the easiest way is to
come along the center where the bones are, like so.
As you can see you've still got the skin on there
what you've got is something workable.
So, knife in at the end to the skin, and there you have the skin at the bottom.
All you need to do is firmly hold on to the bit where you've cut.
Don't move it, and use a sharp knife to come all the way along the fillet
Like so.
Then what you've got is a lovely loin of cod
which you now can portion for your fish and chips.
So the bottom side,
which is the belly of the fillet, just remove all of this, it's just like a sinew.
It's the actual inside of the belly,
which is not very nice to eat, we'll remove that.
And then the bones are still in there, so we just need to find where the bones are,
using your sharp knife come along the center again
just cutting the bones out
and then the same as we did before just cutting at the bottom, bring
your knife along holding onto the skin.
Let the knife do the work.
You can get 4 nice pieces out of one fillet,
for your fish and chips, all those trimmings that you've got left over
don't throw them away, stick them in your freezer, when you've got enough make
yourself a lovely fish pie.
Ok so I've got my fish ready. So the first thing you do
is get your chips into the fryer, to get them coloured off first.
Otherwise you're going to be struggling for room in your fryer
So the fryer is hot on 180 degrees
now, we'll seal them off for about 4 minutes
so they can start to colour up before we take them out
let them cool slightly while we put the fish in.
So whilst the chips are cooking for 4 minutes we'll get on with the cod.
We take our batter which has been resting for about 10 minutes,
and then we'll get some flour with a little
bit of salt in there and a touch of pepper.
And then just pass your cod fillet through the flour, knock off any excess
You don't want any layers of raw flour in there
and then into the batter.
Ok so the chips have been colouring off now about 4 minutes
so we'll take them off to drain.
And now you put the cod in
Leave the cod in there for about 2 minutes, and then we'll turn them over
and cook for another 3 or 4 minutes before we add the chips back in
and then hopefully we'll come out with something nice and golden brown.
The cod's about 3 or 4 minutes away now so I'm going to add the chips back in
just to finish them off
If you don't have a deep fat fryer you can simply breadcrumb the cod
by putting it though flour, egg and breadcrumbs and then shallow fry it
in a hot pan, and you'll get roughly the same result
but it is worth getting a deep fat fryer because fish and chips is all about the deep fat fryer
First thing you do is add a little bit of salt
Drain off our peas
Wedge of lemon,
our cod,
beautiful crispy chips,
our peas,
then lovely thick tartar sauce
and there you have it, that's my
cod and chips with tartar sauce and fresh peas.