Homemade Beer Battered Fish and Chips

People have called us adventurous before, when it comes to our recipes. But, you know what, it isn’t really what we set out to do.

Battered Fish and Chips

Sure, we want to try things we haven’t tried; new recipes, a random new piece of vegetable or meat. But generally, we aren’t looking for adventure.

Case in point, last weeks Oysters and Cheese in a Pancetta Cup. That recipe was the result of a Google search on things we had in the fridge, namely oysters and pancetta. We didn’t set out on that to do anything wild or amazing, just come up with a tasty meal using what we had in the fridge.

But, admittedly, not everyone had oysters and pancetta in the fridge, so I guess that might make us a little more adventurous.

This recipe, however, was a little adventurous.

I wanted to make fish and chips.

We don’t really remember why. Maybe the fish was a little old. No idea.

But, seriously, if there’s anything to take away from what I’m saying here is: if you want to call this adventurous, call it that, but, explore. Just google for some recipes based on what you have in your fridge.

Beer Battered Fish and Chips

Pan Fried Battered Halibut

Adapted from Beer Battered Onion Rings
Serves 2-4

• Flour, 1 cup
• Chorizo Salt from Secret Stash Salts, 1 teaspoon (or 1 tsp of salt and cayenne pepper)
• Buttermilk, 3/4 cup
• Beer, 3/4 cup (see notes)
• Egg, 1 large
• Halibut, 1 pound
• Potatoes, 3-4 medium size
• Olive Oil (see notes)

1. Mix the flour and salt together, whisking in the buttermilk, beer and egg.
2. Let sit for 30 minutes.
3. Thinly slice the potatoes while letting the batter age.
4. Cut the halibut down into pieces no thicker than a half inch thick, and roughly one inch wide, two to three inches long, removing any skin. For an average fillet, you’re looking at a couple fingers wide and a finger tip thick. Depending on your fingers, of course.
5. In a deep, straight sided frying pan, pour olive oil to a depth of approximately 1/8 to 1/4 inch and set to high heat after the batter has aged.
6. Once the oil is hot, where a drop of the batter into the pan should almost immediately sizzle and bubble, dip in a piece of fish into the batter and lay into the pan. Add enough to the pan so that they do not touch. The batter will spread as you place them down.
7. Cook for approximately three to five minutes per side, or until golden brown. You can lift the piece of fish to see how it is progressing.
8. Once a piece of fish is finished, transfer to a paper towel covered plate to drain for a few minutes before moving to a plate/platter so as not to soak up all the oil they just shed.
9. You may want to put the fish on an oven safe plate and store in the oven at low heat, just to keep them warm.
10. On the last batch of fish, if you have just a couple pieces left, or after you have finished the fish, start dipping the potato slices into the batter and drop them into the oil. They will only need two minutes per side.

Note: Quite a few notes on this one.

Type of beer: Porter didn’t seem to work as well as an ESB, but, seriously, try beers you like.

Oil may need to be changed out during the cooking. If the oil gets dark and starts to smell a little over done, change it out. Also, pull out any batter bits as often as you can. It will make the oil need to be changed out.

An alternative chip recipe would be to just follow the root veggie chip recipe, except for using potatoes.

This recipe, obviously, would be far better in a deep fryer, and if I ever find one cheap at Goodwill, I’ll be sorely tempted. But just making it in a frying pan was still surprisingly good.

Edited to add: CB makes a really good point in the comments. Olive oil isn’t necessarily the best oil for this application. We used what we had on hand and what was affordable. If you’re going to be deep frying this, you definititely don’t want to use olive oil and if you want a more proper oil for pan frying, you might want to look at this table. All I can say is it worked for us for a quick ‘We need to fry something.’ Ideally, we’d be using lard (if we had enough) or hazelnut oil (if we had enough money) for the local aspect.

Halibut and Oved Baked Chips