Real English Fish and Chips With Yorkshire Beer Batter

"I was taught how to cook fish and chips by my mum when I was about 12 years old; we were living in Hong Kong at the time and it was my mum's way of treating us to a little bit of home as a treat! My mum had this recipe written down on the back of an old envelope stuck inside her Be-Ro cookbook from 1952 - I never use any other method now! One trick is to make sure that everything is prepared and assembled ready for frying takeoff!!! If you are cooking for two or more people, have your oven on with a lined tray to keep the fish and chips warm. If you really want to be totally authentic, cut up squares of greaseproof paper and sheets of newspaper - place the fish and chips onto the greaseproof paper and then into a sheet of newspaper. All you need now is a pickled onion, salt and MALT VINEGAR! TIPS for CHIPS: I notice one reviewer had difficulty with the chips. Here are a few tips or tricks for chips: Make sure they are DRIED thoroughly. Make sure the fat is VERY hot - 190 degrees C. Certain potatoes are better for chipping, such as King Edwards, Desiree, Majestic, Maris Piper, and Romano. You can soak the chips for an hour before the first frying - it extracts excess starch, which helps in the "crisping" process! Always drain them thoroughly before serving. I hope these tips will help!"
 
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photo by Ashley Cuoco photo by Ashley Cuoco
photo by Ashley Cuoco
photo by Ashley Cuoco photo by Ashley Cuoco
photo by theresehowe photo by theresehowe
photo by Tom B. photo by Tom B.
photo by Colette M. photo by Colette M.
Ready In:
1hr
Ingredients:
9
Serves:
4
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ingredients

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directions

  • Heat fat up in a chip pan or automatic deep fat fryer - mine has a chip setting which is 190°C.
  • Peel the potatoes and cut into chunky sized chips. Rinse and dry thoroughly.
  • Fry chips for about 3 minutes until soft but NOT coloured. Drain and shake well and set to one side.
  • Put some flour onto a plate. Dredge the fish fillets in the flour thoroughly - this is VERY important, it stops the batter sliding off when fried! Leave the fish fillets in the flour whilst you make the batter.
  • Some people say you should make the batter at least one hour before - I have found little difference - so make it before if it is convenient or now!
  • Put flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and pepper into a large roomy bowl. Add the beer gradually, stop when you have a thick coating type of batter. Drink any beer that is left! Whisk thoroughly until it is smooth and there are no lumps.Add the lemon juice OR a splash of malt vinegar if desired. Mix thoroughly again.
  • Have your plates, newspaper or whatever ready for eating!
  • Adjust deep fat fryer to fish frying temperature of 160°C.
  • Take one fillet of fish at a time and holding it by the tail or thin end (!) swirl it around the batter until well coated - plunge into hot fat immediately. As soon as it has crisped up and set, add your other fillets one at a time, taking out the first ones as they cook - about 6 to 10 minutes depending on the thickness. Place onto a tray and keep warm in the oven.
  • Turn up the heat setting to 190°C again and cook your chips until golden and crisp.
  • Serve on plates or newspaper with salt & vinegar!
  • All you need now is a pint of warm beer and Coronation Street on the TV to set the scene!
  • This batter is great for small fish goujons, chicken goujons and also tempura vegetables too.

Questions & Replies

  1. Can you make this in the air fryer? Any suggestion on time and temp?
     
  2. I don't have a deep fryer, can this be made on the stove top?
     
  3. 160 C is what in F
     
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Reviews

  1. Excellent! Very easy recipe with a light, crisp batter. I used Tilapia as my fish & used a Heffen Weisse beer (closer to 10 ounces). I used a plain old Idaho potato, but initially put my potato wedges in ice water before putting them in for their first frying. The "chips" turned out great as well. For those of us in the States, 6 ounces of flour is roughly 1 1/3 cups, 190 C = 374 F, and 160 C = 320 F....
     
  2. Excellent batter!! I have made this a number of times using it to batter both fish and chicken. Turns out perfect everytime and is delicious. Thanks French Tart. PS. For those of you that do not know, when food is deep fried in a batter it will remain cooking when taken out of the fryer, turning the batter 2 shades darker, keep this in mind so you do not overcook or burn it
     
  3. 18 months of living in Thailand and one thing I realy missed was a good plate of fish and chips, it was a regular thing in Blighty. <br/>Anyway this recipe fitted the bill nicely. I used tempura flour and a local Thai lager for the batter, and Dory made an acceptable alternative to cod or Haddock, (don't tell Nemo). Im a very happy and full man. Thanks. "Highly recommended"
     
  4. Fantastic! Used a Murphys stout for the beer. And it was delish! Golden Brown, and flaky. I cooked the fish (cod) about 8 minutes, which seemed to be perfect, as I had some fairly decent sized fillets.
     
  5. Excellent recipe, just like the fish and chips I loved as a boy. For those that found the recipe "bland" it is worth noting that this is an authentic recipe. You can of course change it as you like but real English fish and chips don't have a lot of spices and seasonings - that's what the malt vinegar is for! Furthermore, putting tartar sauce on proper fish and chips is tantamount to blasphemy. You may as well just pick up a box of Gorton's fish sticks from the supermarket if you're going to do that.
     
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Tweaks

  1. Couldn’t find a British bitter here on Oahu so I used a local beer and it turned out great! Also used a local fish called ono - wahoo for those on the mainland US
     
    • Review photo by theresehowe
  2. I am an American so bear with me I know this is probably blasphemy to some but I substituted the chips with curly fries or steak fried fries. I used a Lawry's seasoning salt blend on the fries to change things up a bit and keep the dish fresh by having three or four different variations of the chips.
     
  3. Absolutely wonderful beer batter recipe, I even found an english beer at the LCBO in my small town to make it authentic! I ended up making onion rings instead of french fries to use up the excess batter and those were delicious too. Hot enough oil makes a HUGE difference. Fish I used was cod and I just estimated the cooking time based on the color of the batter and it turned out perfectly.
     
  4. Substituted 7 up and malt vinegar for the beer.
     
  5. Wow! This batter was awesome! I used cheap Keystone Light beer and baking soda that's been around for years and it still turned out light and crispy. Not at all greasy, either. I used pollock instead of cod since it was half the price for twice as much at the grocery store. My fish was long and skinny so it cooked in about 3 minutes. I will use this recipe again. The husband is a fried fish fanatic and he loved this. I gives me an alternative to the cornmeal coated catfish I usually make. Thank you!
     

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<p><strong><span>The sunflowers in the field behind my house in SW France:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Sunflowers src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/DSCN8221.jpg alt=Sunflowers width=640 height=480 /><br /><strong><span><br /><br />I am British (English-Scottish), but I was born in South Africa and have lived all over the world, including Hong Kong, Germany, Cyprus, USA &amp; Singapore. I have also been very fortunate to have travelled extensively over the years.........I still have wanderlust! <br /><br />I used to be an English Literature &amp; Art History teacher &amp; lecturer; before that, I trained and worked as a Graphic Designer for many years. I now live in France with my husband &amp; my daughter who has just started university in September 2006. We also have one very chatty Burmese cat Willow, who allows us to live with her here! (I used to have three cats, I recently lost Monty, a beautiful seal point Siamese and before that, Rama, who was a debonair blue point Siamese cat - I would love to have another Siamese cat or cats in the future!)</span></strong></p> <p><em><strong><span>This is my Burmese Cat, Willow, sunning herself on the log pile in the kitchen garden:</span></strong></em></p> <p><strong><img title=My src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/ABaconButtyandSundryFoodPhotos34.jpg alt=My width=640 height=480 /></strong></p> <p><strong><span>Here is my lovely Monty, a seal point Siamese, and Willow, sitting&nbsp;in the kitchen garden last year, and a few months before Monty died; he was 18yrs old:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Monty src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/AbsolutelySinfulStickyToffeePudding.jpg alt=Monty width=640 height=480 />My</p> <p><strong><span>This is my wonderful old boy, Rama, a blue-point Siamese, who died when he was 20yrs old - excuse the old and much sellotaped photo:</span></strong></p> <p><img title=Rama src=http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r271/copperhorse58/Rama1stOctober2004164.jpg alt=Rama width=517 height=639 /></p> <p><strong><span>My favourite pastimes are: reading, writing, painting &amp; drawing, photography, gardening, anything creative, walking, travelling, dining out and of course COOKING! 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