Going for British Cuisine: Delicious Fish and Chips

Many people would muse that hell can be likened to coming to  a dinner where the French would welcome and entertain you, while the British cook and serve you the food.  Well, I disagree with this.  How can we not like Fish and Chips among many of the culinary creations of the UK?  And have we forgotten about Jamie Oliver?

I remembered this story once more when I went to Macau last week.  One of our food stops at the Venetian Hotel is McSorley’s Ale House, a wonderful restaurant-pub.  We felt at home at the place because gracious Filipinos comprise majority of  the staff.  And of course, the food is very delicious!  We had fish and chips.  I’ve never tried fish and chips, and the mouth-watering version of McSorley’s inspired me to create my own fish and chips recipe.  And I got the taste that I wanted on the first try!  So here is the recipe.

Fish and Chips Recipe ala RatedRalph

Ingredients

For the Fish:

• Cream Dory, 1 kilo (2 lbs)
• Beer for the marinade
• Salt and pepper
• Flour, 2 cups
• 3 eggs
• Beer, 3 bottles
• Garlic, 2 cloves

1) For 4 people, you will need 1 kilo (2 lbs) of white fish meat fillet.  In this case, I used cream dory, which I sliced into 3- to 4-inch pieces. Cream dory is a versatile fish, and I use it for many other dishes.

The secret to the having the best fish and chips is to marinate it in beer for at least 30 minutes.  I used 2 bottles of San Miguel Beer’s Pale Pilsen variant, courtesy of the San Miguel Brewery team, who gave it to me as a Christmas gift.  (Thank you again, San Miguel!)

2) While you are marinating the fish, you may proceed with the chips — or the fries.  I want my chips as fresh and as homemade as much as possible.  I veer away from buying supermarket fries.  Still, I don’t want the hassle of making them from scratch and doing the julienne chop for the fries, which is tedious.  So, to simplify things, I use baby potatoes.  I bake them to make them more healthy.  I just chop the baby potatoes in half, toss them in olive oil, add salt and pepper.  Bake them in the oven at 175C for 20 minutes.  And that’s it.  Keep them warm while you finish your fish.

3) In a separate bowl: mix the eggs, flour, 2 garlic cloves, salt and pepper, and 1 bottle of beer.  This will serve as the batter.  Have a separate bowl of flour ready.  Rub the fish with flour, and then dip it in the batter.  Rubbing the fish with flour will help ensure that the batter sticks to the fish and doesn’t fall off when you deep fry the fish.  By the way, for the batter, you can substitute half of the flour with corn flour if you want extra flavor.

4) After dipping the fish into the batter, deep fry the fish in a pot or pan filled with a mixture of cooking oil, a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and 1 stick butter.  Cook until your fish is golden brown.

5) Assemble the fish and chips on your plate.  Well, I used wax paper/baking paper instead of the newspaper.  Serve the fish with tartar sauce.  To simplify my life, I bought tartar sauce at the supermarket and added chopped dill to make it more tasty.

Enjoy!

**Watch out for my next recipe this week, another British dish **