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Sunday 21 March 2010

Beer Battered Fish and Chips, fresh from Aldeburgh

 

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A perfect weekend away with the girls in Norfolk, a trip to Aldeburgh on the way home to pick up some ‘caught that morning’ fish, then home to the OH to combine it with beer batter and home-cooked chips with mushy peas. And despite the batter not sticking that well to the fish, any tips on how to correct this greatly received, it was delicious!

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I couldn’t find a Jamie recipe in my books, but when I looked through ‘The River Cottage Year’, there, in March, was a beer-batter recipe with ideas for mush peas and tartare sauce as well. I used cod as it looked lovely in the sheds on the beach, and my only other change was to flour the fish before coating in the batter, and yes, I know this may be the reason the batter didn’t stick!

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Batter Recipe – to serve 4-6 (although I halved the recipe and it made enough to coat at least 3 large pieces of fish!)

Sift 200g plain flour with salt and pepper in a bowl and combine with 2 tbs. olive oil.

Beat in 250ml good beer – leave to rest.

Meanwhile, cut your fillets of white fish and coat in salt, leaving for 15 minutes.

Wash the salt off with cold water after this time and pat dry. Season with pepper and leave to sit.

Heat a good depth of oil in a heavy-based pan and heat until a cube of bread goes a golden brown in 2-3 minutes.

If the batter needs loosening, add another splash of beer, then whisk 2 egg whites to the soft peak stage and carefully fold them into the batter mixture.

Coat the fish in the mixture and fry each piece individually for 4-5 minutes.

Place onto kitchen paper to ‘dry’ then pop into a warm oven until the other pieces are ready!

Chips

Peel and ‘chip’ your potatoes, I used Maris Piper, then rinse several times in cold water.

Drain and dry on kitchen paper.

Ensure the oil is hot, as above, and carefully tip your potatoes in.

Leave on hot for a few seconds, then lower the heat until the potatoes are cooked through.

Turn the heat up again to brown.

Remove chips onto kitchen paper to remove grease and season.

Mushy Peas – the quick version!

I used frozen garden peas and simply boiled them for a few minutes until squishy.

When cooked, pop them in a blender with a knob of butter, some of the cooking liquid and seasoning.

Blitz until smooth with a spoonful of mint sauce if you fancy it!

 

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You can watch Hugh’s version below, and looking at it, his batter also ‘explodes’ when it hits the fat!

When all the above is ready, serve with buttered bread, ketchup and a dollop of tartare sauce. This was the perfect meal to end my weekend, and especially to congratulate my OH on completing his half marathon today whilst I was away doing absolutely no exercise whatsoever! Unless a walk along the beach counts?

2 comments:

  1. Awesome fish, I really must get around to visiting Aldeburgh this year.

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  2. Apparently either my fish wasn't dry enough - which it was as I dried it thoroughly and left it for aaaaaages! - or, the batter was too runny, which is definitely a possibility as I guessed the quantity of beer. Thanks Pip x

    ReplyDelete

Hi,
Would love to hear your thoughts and ideas!
Merlotti x

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