How To Make Crispy Fish & Chips

There's a reason fish and chips is the most famous dish in England. We'll start by making our chips. Traditionally, the chips in England are made with no skins. So I'm going to keep that tradition going and do the same. Lately, when peeling potatoes, I like to play a little game with myself where I see if I can get the entire skin off with one peel. But if you're hungry, I don't recommend that method because it takes quite a bit of focus and it won't change the flavor of the chips. I'm going to cut them into what are called batons. The more even they are in size and thickness, the more consistently they'll cook. And I am cutting them quickly so they don't start to brown and oxidize. We want nice, beautiful golden fries, not brown fries. We're going to rinse these now until the water runs clear, the same way we'd rinse rice before cooking, to remove any excess surface starch. And once the water runs clear, we'll let this soak for at least 30 minutes. While they soak, we'll make the batter for our fish using all-purpose flour, potato starch, baking powder, salt, white pepper, mustard powder, and just a little pinch of smoked paprika. Hold on, my grandma's calling me. You have three TV remotes, but you only need one. But you have three TV remotes. You have three remotes. Got it, okay. All right, love you, bye-bye. Whisk it all together, and already it's time to fry. For our frying oil, we'll use a mix of neutral oil and beef tallow. That beef tallow is the secret for richness and a slight beefy flavor. While our oil heats up, we'll dry off our chips. It's important that you dry these extremely well. Just remember, the drier they are, the crispier they'll be. Once your oil's to temp, fry them in batches. And while they cook, adjust your temperature constantly to make sure that the oil temperature stays the same. We're double frying both our fish and our chips. So what you're seeing now with the chips is the first stage of that frying. At a lower temperature to cook them more consistently through, before we'll later fry them at a higher temperature to get them nice and golden brown. Once the first stage of cooking is complete, we'll set the fries onto a wire rack and paper towel-lined baking sheet, where I'll then space them out so they're not steaming each other. And now, depending on how many fries you decide to make, go ahead and toss in that second batch. The nice thing is, once we do that second phase of frying, we can do them all together at once. The first fry of our chips is done, which means we now have to heat our oil to do our first fry on the fish. To our dry mixture, we'll add some cold beer, as well as cold sparkling water. The bubbles in each of these are going to expand in the hot oil when we fry and give us that light, airy texture on the crust of the fish. Once fully mixed, we'll let this rest for five minutes while we prep our fish. We'll be using cod, which is the most common choice by shops across England. When it comes to how we trim, there's really no right or wrong answer, but I'm going to use the natural lines of the fish to help guide what I do. Personally, I actually prefer when the fish isn't all the same size. I like some square, some longer, makes it a little bit more fun. We'll season generously on all sides with sea salt, white pepper, and potato starch, not only to give some flavor, but also something for that wet batter to stick to. And once our batter's had time to rest, toss in your fish and into the oil we go. I like to ease each piece of fish into the oil, sort of like when you climb into a hot tub and you have to go slowly so you don't burn yourself. Let's see if you can see some of these crispy, craggly bits from far away. Look at those. These are good. After the first fry, the fish should have sort of an off-white, maybe light little spots of brown here and there color. And while our oil heats up for the final round of frying, I'm going to go over here, clean up, and make our sauces. For our tartar sauce, we'll combine mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, chopped cornichons, chopped capers, diced shallot, chopped parsley, some lemon zest and lemon juice, a sprinkle of white pepper, and a pinch of salt. Whisk it up and season to taste, then cover it up. I drew a British person. And toss in the fridge. Our oil is almost at temp, but before it gets there, we're going to make one more quick sauce. My favorite sauce for fish and chips, curry sauce. I had it for the first time at Gordon Ramsay's Fish and Chips restaurant, and it was delicious. And all it takes is mayonnaise, honey, lemon juice, curry powder, and a sprinkle of salt. And if you want to make it extra bright and yellow, you can also sprinkle in a little bit of turmeric, depending on how you like the color. British people might hate me for saying this, but I actually like to mix the curry sauce with the tartar sauce. Let me draw another British person. Actually, I'm going to turn this one into Gordon Ramsay. Into the fridge we go. We want the sauce to have that nice cold contrast with the hot fish and chips. For the second fry on our chips, like I said before, we can fry them all at once. This time around, we're going to fry for three to five minutes until they're deeply golden brown with a crisp outer shell. Toss them straight into a bowl and hit them immediately with salt. They should sound something like this. For our fish, we'll follow the same steps we just did for our chips. We just want to fry for a few more minutes to get that deep golden brown color and a shatteringly crispy shell. The second they're done, I'll hit them with a sprinkle of salt just so it sticks to the little spots of oil. And now we can plate. First with our chips, and then with our fish. And once we've got our mushy peas, I'm going to assemble a bite with a little bit of everything, including lemon juice, a little malt vinegar, some tartar sauce and curry sauce, and of course, a chip. Listen to this. Best fish and chips I've ever had. Ooh, maybe I'll bring some to my grandma.