Last Updated on April 18, 2021 by Fiona Maclean
The Great British Fish and Chips!
#Ad: Written in Conjunction with Opies
Gentle reader, do you crave certain foods? Chocolate perhaps? Ice-cream or homemade cookies? When you should be cooking your fish en papillote with green vegetables, do you crave a fish and chips shop special? I know I do – and for several years I’d indulge my craving for battered cod at Oval Farmers’ Market on Saturdays, where there was a mobile fish and chips truck. Now, sadly, the fish and chips truck is no more though thankfully we do still have Potter Street Fishmongers. So I queue dutifully for my fresh fish, ask what is local and go home with all sorts of wet fish to play with. Sometimes though, I just want the comfort of the familiar. Beer Battered Cod – a treat from my childhood by the sea from the fish and chip shop. Did you know that even if you don’t own a deep fryer, you can make your own beer battered fish and chips from scratch with very little effort. Add some easy homemade tartar sauce made with store cupboard staples from Opies and peas with silverskin onions (my substitution for mushy peas) and you’ll have a feast fit for a king.
The trick to making beer battered fish from scratch without a deep fryer is quite simply to plan carefully. Fish and Chips is one of the top 10 meals that UK households make on a regular basis and 26% of the people surveyed in a recent YouGov poll listed it. But, more than half those surveyed wanted a way to make a small change to their repertoire and over a quarter said they were bored or very bored with their meal choices. Making the dish from scratch really isn’t difficult and will save money while for me, tartar sauce is a way to really elevate the everyday. Homemade tartar sauce can be put together very easily with some of the Opies products you may have in your store cupboard anyway or can buy very cheaply at most supermarkets. Then, using the leftover silverskin onions to make a version of the American peas with onions is not only frugal, but a great way to add a little class to your meal. It’s a side dish that will go well with lamb or beef dishes too.
Start by making up your tartar sauce. You’ll need mayonnaise, capers, gherkins, silverskin onions and the soft herb of your choice – dill, parsley or tarragon all work well. Luckily most of the ingredients are available from Opies in neat jars you can keep in the pantry. Then, you can easily make your own homemade tartar sauce, either using homemade mayonnaise or a good quality shop-bought one. You can even make a vegan tartare sauce by using an egg-free mayo! Homemade tartar sauce is delicious and once you’ve made some, you can use it with all sorts of other dishes. I like mine with a jacket potato and cheese for lunch or served with a grilled steak.
The trick I use to make beer battered cod and chips from scratch without an air fryer or a deep fat fryer is to make the chips in the oven so that I only have one pan of oil to manage (which I use to cook the fish). It’s possible to cook the fish in the oven too, but I’ve found that a flour, egg and crumb coating works much better if you are planning on cooking that way. Cooking beer battered cod in a deep frying pan is perfectly possible though, you just need to pick the right cut of fish, something that is not too thick (cod tails work best for me) so that a centimetre or half an inch of oil can cover the fish completely.
To make the chips in the oven, you just need to peel and slice your potatoes as you would do generally for chips. Then, dunk them in cold water while you bring a pan of water to the boil. Add the raw chips and par-boil for 3 minutes. Drain them well and add them to a large bowl with a tablespoon or so of seasoned oil. Pop them in a hot oven for 15 to 20 minutes, turning them every 5 minutes.
The peas with silverskin onions are based on a popular Southern American dish. While in the summer I’d use fresh garden peas, at this time of year, I cheat and just melt a tablespoon of butter in a small ovenproof pan, add a dessertspoonful of drained Opies silverskin onions per 50g of frozen peas, then cover and put the whole thing into the oven for 10 minutes with the chips.
Meanwhile make up your batter with flour, beer and baking powder. Pat each fish fillet dry with kitchen paper, then sprinkle with a little seasoned flour. . Heat around a centimetre or half an inch of vegetable oil (I like sunflower oil) in a deep frying pan or saute pan and when it’s hot enough that a little batter dropped into the pan sizzles nicely and turns golden brown in about 30 seconds it is time to add the fish. Dip the cod fillets quickly into the batter mixture and straight into the pan to seal. You may only be able to cook one at a time – it’s important not to crowd the pan. Turn it quickly then reduce the temperature a little. Leave it to cook for about 3 minutes, checking regularly. Once the batter on the underside is golden brown, turn your fish again and leave to cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Once the batter is a good colour on both sides, take the fish out of the oil and put it on a cooling tray covered with kitchen roll to drain off some of the oil. If you have several fillets to cook or your chips are not ready, you can put the fish in the oven for 5 minutes or so at the same temperature as the chips – or if you have a second oven, keep the fish warm at 90-100c for up to 20 minutes.
Here’s the recipe for the battered cod with homemade tartar sauce and oven chips.
Battered Cod with homemade Tartar Sauce and Oven Chips. No deep fat fryer required!
- 150 ml mayonnaise homemade or good quality pre-prepared
- 2 tbsp Opies gherkins drained and finely choppped
- 2 tbsp Opies capers drained and finely chopped
- 2 tbsp Opies silverskin onions drained and finely chopped
- 3 slices Opies lemon drained and finely chopped
- 2 tbsp dill, parsley or tarragon (or a mix) finely chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 2 medium tail-end of cod pieces 300 - 350g of fish
- 75 g plain flour plus a little extra to coat the fish
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 100 ml pale ale
- 250 ml vegetable oil to fry - the exact amount will depend on your pan.
- salt and pepper
- 350 g Maris Piper or King Edward potatoes
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- salt and pepper
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Put the mayonnaise in a bowl with all the chopped ingredients
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Stir well, then season to taste with salt and pepper
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Cover and store in the fridge for up to 2-3 days as necessary
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Pre-heat the oven to 250c or 230c fan oven - or as close as you can get if your oven doesn't heat to that temperature
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Peel the potatoes
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Cut them lengthwise in half, then cut lengthwise 1cm slices
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Cut each slice into 1cm thick sticks
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Put them into cold water to store
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Heat a medium pan of water till it is boiling then add the potatoes, bring back to the boil and cook for 3 minutes
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Drain the potatoes well
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Put the oil, salt and pepper into a large bowl
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Add the potato chips and mix well with your hands to coat with oil. This is best done while the potatoes are warm
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Spread the potatoes out on a baking tray and put in the oven for 15-20 minutes, turning every 5 minutes
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When the potato chips are golden brown all over and soft in the middle they are ready to serve
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While the chips are cooking, make up the beer batter by sifting the flour, baking powder and a little salt and pepper into a mixing bowl. Add the beer bit by bit, using a balloon whisk to avoid lumps
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Pat the fish dry with kitchen paper
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Coat it with a little flour. I do this by putting a teaspoon of flour into a sieve held over the fish.
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Put the oil into a saute pan or deep frying pan
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10 minutes before your chips are due to be cooked, heat the oil until it is just starting to smoke. A small amount of batter should turn crispy golden brown in 30 seconds
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Dip the fish in batter, making sure you coat all sides
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Carefully place the fish in the oil and, using kitchen tongs, turn it once immediately
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Reduce the heat of the oil a little and cook the fish for 3 minutes
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Turn the fish once and cook for a further 3 minutes
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Carefully remove the fish from the oil and drain on kitchen paper
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If necessary keep warm until your chips are cooked. If you are cooking for more than two people or you have a pan that will only fit one fillet, then cook in batches. The fish will keep in a warming oven for up to 20 minutes or even in the oven with the chips for 5 minutes or so.
To serve four people, simply double the ingredients.
If you are curious about how this most British of dishes originated, you may be interested to learn that the origin of the fried fish is thought to be from Jewish immigrants from Spain and Portugal who used to fry their fish in a batter of flour and water. These immigrants moved over to England and settled in areas like Spitalfields in London, one of the first places to have a Fish and Chips shop in England. Potatoes themselves are, of course, not native to the UK and appeared in this country after the invasion of South America by the Spanish. They were introduced to Europe in the second half of the 16th century. No one knows who first served fish and chips together but there are records of shops selling the combination in the 1860s both in London and in the North of England. The combination became a very popular working-class meal, thanks to the development of trawler fishing in the North sea coinciding with the development of the railway network from ports across the country. For the first time, fresh fish could be transported quickly to the major industrial cities. The culinary fusion has never lost its appeal and Fish and Chips is still a common take-away food across the United Kingdom.
When I was growing up, we used to collect our fish and chips wrapped in newspaper to keep it warm. We’d be given a little cone of scraps from the fryer to munch on as we went home where we’d open the packages to reveal crispy cod in batter with vinegar laced chips. Tartar sauce, if it was offered at the chippie, came in little plastic sachets and I can promise you was nothing like as nice as the homemade version using Opie’s store-cupboard ingredients. If only my mum had known how easy it was to make!
While it’s a healthy meal, this battered cod and chips is not a low-calorie option. Breading your fish and baking it in the oven will save a lot of calories. If you want to add tartar sauce, I’d suggest using a mixture of half fat mayonnaise and yoghurt as the base and adding the same pickled ingredients and herbs.
For more information about Opies pickles and other products from Opies Foods, check their website –www.opiesfoods.com. You can also find them on social media with the handle @opiesfoods. You will find Opies in the pickled aisle of most major supermarkets with prices starting at 90p or you can buy their products online from Amazon or Sous Chef
A great British staple!