Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Hello all! I went and bought a bunch of cod and potatoes to make fish and chips as a surprise for my husband. He gave me an alarmed look when I said I intended to fry them as I have deep-fried things all my life, in an open pan of hot oil. :eek: I got rushed out immediately to buy a proper fryer. :thumbsup:

We have plenty of fish, the proper sort of potatoes (according to him), we're making a beer batter because he likes it, and we're using good fresh peanut oil to cook in (I won't use soya, rapeseed, or corn oils to deep fry, and the fryer manual says not to use shortening or lard without some very stupid extra precautions).

My main question is this. Since I have only one fryer, in which order should I make the fish and the chips? Should the fish hold warm while we fry the chips, or can we hold the chips warm while we fry the fish? What do you do at home? :britflag:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Part do the chips, do the fish, hold it warm in the oven, finish the chips.

Don't forget the mushy peas.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

good chips should be around 5/8" square in section.....

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

All went well thanks, took Mr. Weeze's advice, and I let him cut the chips :) We're stuffed lol!

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

what is his idea of a 'proper fryer' and how did it differ, in your opinion, to the use of an open pan of hot oil? The only 'special' thing we had as kids was a pan that had a close-fitting basket for removal of fried food when done. Much later, we got a fancier fryer that had a proper lid, with built-in filters, and such. Chips never tasted as good with the new device :). I love home made chips (we also used to use lard :) )

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

lidded deep fat fryers tend to steam them.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

One with a basket, thermostat, lid, and ready light. He said the old-fashioned pan was a fire hazard and he disliked them. We didn't leave the lid on all the way during frying though for just the reason steveq said.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Clearly your DH is an aficianado....

The local fire service here is trying to "stamp out" the conventional chip pan fire - responsible for nearly 3000 serious fires a year.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Damn! Now I have a hankering for a fish supper!

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

The results (removed too-big photo): https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...58122468_o.jpg Homemade tartar sauce there; I hate the sweet gooey crap so I made a spicy, rich version with fresh lemon juice, sour cornichons, a few pickled jalapenos, shallots, and parsley :)

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

:goodpost:

Well done that lady:thumbup:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

The chips look amazing! What kind of spuds did you get?

Around here, it's pretty much russets and that's about it at the moment. During the summer, there's the Maine spuds, which are a bit more white and less firm or the expensive red spuds.

One thing I miss is the battered sausages.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Some sort of rock-hard, medium-sized, smooth-skinned white potato that DH says is the kind the chip shops use, not a russet but a boiling potato type of thing. I got that kind totally by accident; the market was out of the gold kind he likes to get! He did mention battered sausages as the next thing he wants to make. I have a feeling the purchase of the fryer was of the same ilk as the age-old "buy the wife a power drill for Christmas" stunt. :)

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Can I come round your house for dinner?

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

You can actually do a bunch of chips and part fry then freeze them. Double cooking is meant to be nicer anyway, can't say I've ever noticed the difference though.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

That looks fab.

It's such a fish and chips kind of a day....

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Double cooking,s the only way to get good fries

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Mine always seem to be a touch overdone that way. Maybe I should turn the oil down a bit for the second cooking?

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

The really poncy method Is to parboil them, cool them, dry them and then fry them twice.....

I have determined that life is way too short....

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

most if the cooking should be done at a lower temperature than the final stage - that's when the crisping happens, and it doesn't take long.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

My husband told me about that. I actually didn't believe him. He laughed when I asked him what desperate person with too much time on their hands thought up that one. I expect the next iteration of the recipe to specify which tune I need to whistle in what key as I stand on my head facing North while the chips fry.

I also think that soufleed potatoes, with its best-case 50-percent success rate, is what perfectionists are forced to cook in Hell.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Is lard better to do fish&chips than oil ? I've never tried Lard , whats the difference if any ?

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

mainly that they ain't vegetarian anymore....

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

'Tis true, all the decent chip shops do it - they call it 'blanching' and will say that's how you get the soft fluffy centre (it also works for roast potatoes by 'par-boiling' before roasting).

Lard is out-dated, the od-fashioned stuff is made from animal fat (rather than veg) and is seriously high in cholesterol.

Before I left the UK, I'd started using something called PURA which was in a big solid block like the lard my mum used, but it was vegetable fat. Can't find it anywhere down here in TN. I prefer it in a fryer because solidified fat is easier to store than oil.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

One of several reasons that I fell in love with my wife, her roast potatoes.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

:The chips look perfect, the fish maybe a bit too thick on the batter, looks a tad stodgy. I think I agree on the open fryer, we always had one at home as a kid, but don't think I would do it now, because of fire risk.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Sounds as if it could be similar to Crisco. At home the lard was always allowed to solidify in the pan in between frying sessions (mind you, that wasn't long, something was getting fried most days!) and the pan was put in a cupboard with the fat. I'm horrified at the thought these days . . .

Speedwell, you made me smile thinking of the time many years ago when I decided to cook fish and chips for two friends in my NYC kitchen. I only had one small fryer with a basket in it and it took so many frying sessions to get food on everyone's plate -- we basically had to eat in relays as I fried up a storm. Not a successful dinner party from the gourmet dining point of view, but one of those times you never forget!

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Speedwell - it looks great. Nice job!

+1

Although I normally just par boil then fry mine as I don't have the patience. More often than not I just do sweet potato fries these days though which I just straight up fry.

I just fry in a deep saucepan with a basket. None of this deep fat electric fryer business! :p

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Ain't that the truth, it's miserable today.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Where have you been all my life??? :thumbsup:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

"When I was a lad" ... growing up in the 60s, 'up north', we used lard in an open pan with a basket. no par-boiling, no pre-cooking. I used to peel the potatoes (big russets, I think) and cut them. I absolutely loved the chips and used to steal them out of the pan as they cooked!

I remember that when you dropped the basket full of potatoes into the hot oil, the oil would react violently and almost boil over ... and that's the fire hazard, I presume. But hell, they were good cooked that way!

I don't eat fried fish or chips on a regular basis these days, partly because I want to live longer, partly because my taste-buds have 'moved on' ... so I wouldn't care about the health aspects of using lard once in a while.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

:goodpost:

..and all doors and windows had to be opened to air out the greasy smell afterwards:lol:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

And the outside of the pan acquired a nasty grungy brown coating....:unsure: one thing was for sure, the chip pan never doubled up for the bedtime milk!!

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

I'm the same....I eat a pretty low fat diet these days (not that it's doing me much good!) but my first meal back when visiting my mam is always fish and chips...always delicious, but the effect of that unexpected assault of lard-fried batter on my inner workings is not pleasant....:(

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

All YOUR life? Dyeing my hair to cover the gray. :rofl:

No seriously, thanks :D It was a surprise to see that tartar sauce was actually a legitimately edible substance...

Thanks everyone else too for the confidence-boosting compliments and helpful ideas :)

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

But back in the day, you could go to Woolworths and buy a replacement for a quid.

Back in Uni, we didn't even bother wash the fry pan up, would just chuck it out and get a new one every few weeks...eerrr...months :D

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

It added character....or was it "culture"....:lol:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

It isn't!!

There is no way tartar sauce should come anywhere near real fish and chips.

Newspaper, Salt, Vinegar, Fingers. Nothing else.

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Thank you!

:goodpost:

Re: Help the Yank make fish and chips!
 

Actually, I guess technically the newspaper doesn't actually touch
...it's the white butchers paper (or whatever it is) that does the job. But last time back, our local chippy had gone to serving in boxes:eek: the owner reckoned it was an EU directive, but not sure if that's true or not. At least he tried to make up for it by having newsprint on the outside of the boxes:lol:not quite the same though....