From Fishes Fries

I fucking love fish and chips. It's one of the few traditionally British dishes that I can really get behind, and I find myself craving it a helluva lot. Unfortunately, despite living on an island, and thus surrounded by fish-filled oceans on all sides, the price of fish is fucking extortionate. But when the cravings get too much, you just need to bite the bullet, pay the price, and savour every last bite.

This week I found myself firmly in the grip of a severe craving for the flakiest fish, the thickest chips, and the crustiest batter I could get my teeth into, so here's the result; From Fishes Fries.

Here's what you'll need. This amount of ingredients serves 2 or 3 people, depending on your appetite.
I've gone for a half-kilo cod fillet, but you can use the fish of your choice, though haddock or cod would be your best bet for authentic British-style fish n' chips.

 

To mix up the crispiest, crustiest batter you'll need: 150g plain flour, 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder, and about 120 ml of beer. I went for one of my favourites, the smokey, full-bodied Hoegaarden, but you can put whatever you want into the mix.

Mix it all in a bowl, thrashing it up to the consistency of a light whipped cream. You want it light enough to be able to permeate every contour of the fishy flakes, but a thick enough coating for it to sound like the world ending when you bite into it.

Keep the batter (and your beer!) cold while you do the rest of the prep work. Wash, peel and chop your potatoes into massive chunky fries, the give them a good soak for about 5 minutes.

Fire up your frying weapon of choice. The deep fat fryer I have is a temperamental piece of shit that sometimes just decides it's had enough, switches itself off, and refuses to turn back on again. Which is great fun, when you're left frantically trying to finish cooking your meal on other heat sources.

Anyway, crank it up to about 170 degrees and throw all your un-fried fries in there, and let simmer for a few minutes.

While that's going on, salt and pepper your fish fillets, before very lightly coating them in flour to soak up a little of the fish's natural oiliness.

What a fucking shit picture. Does not properly convey the fact the fish was like 1.5 inches thick.

With that done, you can remove your chips from their first scalding oil torture session. That's right, these fuckers are getting double-dipped!

What, you think I'm only gonna fry these once? No I will not, no fucking way!

Pop them on a tray, and leave 'em in the oven to dry out a little while you do your fish. Remove the beer batter from the fridge, and dunk your fillet right in there, making sure every last piece is thickly coated. Let it drip off a little before tossing it into either your fryer or a pan.

Give it about 5 minutes to crisp up and cook through, then remove it, place it on a greaseproof paper-covered tray, and stick it in the oven while you finish up your chips. Just another few minutes in the bubbling oil will ensure they're just the right mix between delicious and a cardiac event.

Remove them from the oil, toss 'em onto some kitchen roll for de-greasing, then sprinkle with rock salt.

Take your fish outta the oven, and serve the whole lot with a wedge of lemon and lashings of tartare sauce. Bon fucking appetit!

Incase the references weren't explicit enough, here's a serving of something with as much bite and crunch as the food, Nashville/Portland's finest; From Ashes Rise

Give Me Inconvenience or Give Me Death

I fucking hate fast food.

Everything about it, from every single purveyor of the stuff (except Taco Bell, but you don't get that over here anyway). The whole process of walking into the fluorescent box, surrounded by overweight spotty drones, squinting at the tiny text behind someone's head for 5 minutes, trying to work out which option is least likely to give you the shits. Then trying in vain to explain what you want, to the point of using sign language because the overweight spotty drone behind the counter sure as fuck doesn't speak English past the phrase 'next over here, please'. Within 30 seconds, your pre-made 'meal' is being handed to you shrink wrapped in glossy paper and cardboard, and your drink that is pretty much just flavoured ice is spewed out of the giant gurgling robot on the counter. You sit down at the crappy formica booth, trying not to vomit at the sound of all the other pigs snuffling away in their troughs, and attempt to force this (barely edible) cardboard nightmare down your gullet without the aid of any cutlery whatsoever. Now, to me, that sounds like fucking hell. I'd rather starve to death than eat M*******'s.

Safe to say, when I want a decent burger and fries, the process is anything but 'fast'. Occaisionally I get a craving for one so strong it upsets me, because there are NO decent burger places this side of Glasgow, so I usually end up just not eating. Today I actually stood up and audibly said "Fuck this!" and ran out the door with burgs on the brain, much to the surprise of my family.

Here are the ingredients I picked up:

You can pretty much see from the picture the list of ingredients, but the amount of minced beef there is about 1lb, and that makes enough burgs for two.

As usual, the first thing you want to do is slice, dice, dismember, disembowel, sever and generally destroy your vegetables.

Dice your red onions into the tiniest squares imaginable, and sprinkle them through your mince. Add salt, pepper and chilli flakes to taste, and mix it all up using your hands (shout out to Steff: MEAT MANICURES!). Set that aside for now, and get into those potatoes. Slice them into... let's say 8ths, so that they're more wedges than chips, really. Place those into a basin of water for about 10 minutes.

Now you can get back to the fun of playing with carcass! Yay! Grab a handful of your mince mixture, and round it off and pat it into a vaguely burgerly shape, really squash it together so it's good n' dense. You should get 4 pretty decent sized burgers out of that amount of mince.

Empty your potatoes out of the basin, and into a tea towl to dry them off a bit. Fire up your deep fat fryer, and fill it with oil to about halfway full. Once your tatties are dry and your oil is hissing, dump them into the wire basket, and slowly lower them in. You can basically just leave them alone for 10 minutes while they crisp up, and concentrate on your meat.

Get your burgers into a frying pan, and throw in a couple of slices of (preferably streaky) bacon if you have any space left. You're looking at maybe 3.5 minutes per side for the burgers, but don't take my word for it, always cut the biggest burg in half and make sure they're cooked through.

While that's all just cooking away, slice your cheese (I went for Canadian extra mature, mmm pungent!) along the long side, if that makes any sense? Basically the way that will give you a biiig surface area of cheese. If you're of a healthy disposition, rustle up a basic side salad, and get all your other toppings and condiments ready. When your chips are a beautiful golden brown, and your burgs and bacon are a crisp, meaty pile of deliciousness, well then you're done ain't ya? Put it all together and serve with a non-alchoholic beverage, because you're feeling pretty tender after last nights ridiculous intake of beers.