How to prepare Fish and Chips

you don't need a luxury kitchen to prepare gourmet meals my name is Dennis I live in a mobile home in a trailer park and this is my kitchen I have been craving lately good fish and chips some former friends and I used to go down to the restaurants along the waterfront we live on the Pacific Ocean here and we tried a number of restaurants to see which ones had the best fish and chips and then whenever we wanted fish and chips that's where we would go and I got to thinking this week how difficult can it be to make it yourself I can get the same fish that the restaurants buy they're just gonna get it from their suppliers so why not just buy the fish and make it myself I might be able to make it a little bit better because I think I can make it with a beer batter I don't know if they use a beer batter so that's what I want to do today is I want to make my own homemade fish and chips but first let's talk about the fish that you need to use what I got was black cod and you look at the price on their sixty six dollars and 19 cents for just over four pounds yes it's expensive but if you want good fish you have to pay good money for it you don't need four pounds you really only need about let's see I would say one and a half pounds 680 grams I've bought a lot so I could experiment with it and these are the BOK cod fillets they have them all wrapped in plastic I have to take the skin off before I cook them what you need is a sweet white fish and I grew up in New England and we always used cod cod was what we had in the restaurants when we've got fish and chips North Atlantic cod is like the best cut but you can't buy it anymore because the North Atlantic cod population collapsed in the 1990s due to overfishing they now prohibit fishing but here we are in 2013 and the population still hasn't so what I bought here was this is probably something caught in the Pacific obviously because I live on the shore of the Pacific Ocean so I'm gonna use this Cod the guy in the fish store the fish market said that this is what the restaurants use in town so I showed you the fish but that can sit for a while in the refrigerator because that's going to be the quickest to cook the first thing I need to work on is the potatoes for the French fries now I've heard of cooking potatoes twice when making french fries but the recipe I'm following which is one from America's Test Kitchen uses three cooking's of the potatoes and what I'm using here is russets I've got three of these they're just just under a pound each need about 3 pounds 1.4 kilograms of russet potatoes first thing I want to do is square off my potatoes here a little bit I was thinking about when I was doing this that there was a restaurant on the East Coast and whenever they made french fries they didn't peel their potatoes they left the peel on and when I was a kid one of my mom served baked potatoes I used to eat the skin I like the skin supposedly that's where the most nutrients are but it's also supposedly where you will encounter the most possible insecticides I'm not rounding these off squaring these off rather completely square because I don't mind that corners and the edges of my potatoes being my french fries rather being a little rounded okay dear recipe that I'm working from says to cut these and do half-inch that's about a half-inch thirteen centimeters half inch fries what is that unto three maybe four across this way cut it in half and then cut it in half again by squaring them off you at least are able to control the potatoes a little bit better and then this way would be about thirds like so and those of course our long french fries we're not making Fettuccine fries so I'm going to cut those in half and there are my french fries the next thing I need to do oh and by the way some of these have left short and some of these I cut long I'm just curious to see what they're going to be like to eat those different lengths what I need to do is put about 1/4 cup of oil I'm gonna be using corn oil this looks like it's a dishwashing liquid bottle it once was but I use it for corn oil this is to absorb the drips so you want to put about 1/4 cup or so of oil in there that's about 60 milliliters I believe yeah and then just toss these around to coat them well with oil also to help get them separated up if any pieces look really thick like that one looks kind of thick but I'm gonna leave it if any of these look really thick you can cut them down thinner all right I'm gonna rinse my hands and then cover this and microwave it I'm gonna cover this with plastic wrap and if I need a vent I might need a vent I'm going to microwave these on high for about 3 minutes and then turn them over and then do it another three minutes and check them they should be slightly limp but have some resistance to them slightly translucent if they need to go another 2min it's microwave them in additional two minutes here are my potatoes out of the microwave I did go eight minutes on these because I know my microwave oven it's old it's like 3035 years old it's not the big wattage like the newer ovens this should have slight resistance yes when pierced with a fork but they've gone slightly translucent so now what I'm going to do is I'm going to transfer these to a colander that I have in the sink and I'm going to rinse them really well under cold running water I lined a baking sheet with several layers of paper towels that's a motorcycle going by I'm gonna put my potatoes on there spread them out some of these may have overcooked a little bit in the microwave and therefore broke up like that one broke up pretty well and then I'm just gonna kind of half these lightly with a paper towel dry these and you can let these sit for up to an hour at least 10 minutes let them cool down by partially cooking them I'm assuming what I'm doing is I'm preventing them from turning brown preventing them from oxidizing like potatoes will when they sit in the open air alright so those now are ready to set aside I can start working on my batter for my fish I have in a large bowl here one and a half cups of all-purpose flour that's seven and a half ounces by weight or 213 grams I'm going to be adding to that 1/2 cup 2.2 ounces 62 grams of cornstarch two teaspoons of salt 1/2 teaspoon of paprika and then 1/8 of a teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper if you wanted to add some zing to this you could add half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper that's optional I don't like things too hot and spicy ok is that I'm going to whisk this together now I want to take out of this 3/4 of a cup of this flour mixture so where's my spoon right here this is a 1 cup measure I don't have to be precise three-quarters of a cup that looks like it's about three-quarters of a cup and I'm going to transfer this to a baking sheet and then set this aside now returning back to my flour mixture I'm going to add one teaspoon of baking powder to my remaining flour that it's in this bowl after I took out that 3/4 of a cup and I'm gonna whisk this together to combine it evenly I am in the meantime heating oil in a large pot on the stove you need about three quarts plus of oil the original recipe called for peanut oil or canola oil you can use corn oil they all have a high smoke point of about 450 degrees Fahrenheit or 232 degrees cents Celsius that's the point at which the oil starts to burn I only need to heat the oil up to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 177 degrees Celsius well below the smoke point while my oil is heating I want to prepare my fish I obviously don't want a huge piece of fish from my fish and chips so I'm going to cut it up but I also want to get rid of this skin and to get rid of the skin you need a really sharp knife so you want to grab it at one end and with a really sharp knife kind of angle the knife and just cut right along the skin holding it with your fingers and keep moving your fingers up and that'll cut right between the skin and the flesh and if all went according to plan there's my skin fish can toss that aside the other thing I want to do to get this into a more manageable size for eating is let's see I'm going to cut I think this piece at an angle and that'll be one eating piece and then I'm gonna cut this lengthwise this will be two more pieces I have a little tray here set it aside with parchment paper so my oil my oil now is up to 350 degrees so I'm gonna add my french fries my potatoes I'm gonna bring the heat up to high because I'm gonna need it on high just gonna lower those in I'm using my strainer to lower those in so I don't splash hot oil onto myself and I want to cook these until they start to brown around the edges that is boiling up off of high I'm hoping that's not going to boil over on to my stove I could have an oil fire on my hands very soon that should settle down quickly enough and I want to boil these for about six to eight minutes until they start to crisp up and brown a little bit around the edges my fries now have been going for seven minutes I'm gonna remove my thermometer to get it out of the way while I pull these out you can see they're just starting to brown around the edges looking very nice so I'm gonna transfer these to my paper towel lined baking sheet here to drain gosh those are looking so good I can't wait to see what they taste like this is the second cooking they're going to be cooked actually a third time and that's got them all I got one here in the bottom it's funny everything else floated but that one's stuck to the bottom in the meantime now I've patted my fish dry and I'm going to dredge it in this flour mixture that I put on this baking sheet I have in the meantime lined yet another baking sheet with paper towel shake all the excess off and then just let this I'm using a wire rack because that'll help it to stay dry so that the moist isn't collect underneath it if it was sitting on a tray or a piece of parchment paper I think I mentioned that I'm heating the oil up to 375 degrees Fahrenheit now which is 191 degrees Celsius and by the way I'm not using all that fish in case you think this is a small quantity of fish I'm just gonna cook a small amount as I mentioned I bought that fish to experiment with so I have some other ideas so now here is the remainder of my flour mixture to which I added that baking powder and I have it last an opportunity to use the beer bottle and a friend of mine gave me I live in a double-wide mobile home in a trailer park and the name of the beer is double-wide and it says relax it's twisted proof and there's a picture of an old single-wide mobile home on there he gave me this bottle to use in my videos you need about 12 fluid ounces one-and-a-half cups 355 milliliters of beer put most of it in there and mix it together it's okay if it's lumpy okay and then I'm gonna switch to my whisk here and I'm gonna add beer a little bit at a time until I get a nice batter that will stream off of my whisk and leave faint traces I can probably go a little bit more beer yes that's a plane going overhead yes I do live near the airport that nice pinkish color hopefully you can see that color that's from the paprika that's nice okay it streams out and leaves just faint traces in the batter now returning to my tray that has the flour on it I'm going to dip each piece of fish into the batter to coat both sides you can use tongs for this if you want and let most of the excess drip off and then lay it on the flower and then just coat it well with the flower and continue until all of the fish is coated my oil now is just coming up it's just over 375 it's about 380 I'm gonna raise the temperature to high underneath it and then very gently lower those in and I'm only gonna cook about one or two at a time is that I want to crowd this pan you want to turn these once in a while you're gonna cook these for about seven to eight minutes until they're nicely golden brown transfer them to a baking sheet lined with paper towels and then do another couple of fillets while my fish is cooking and your the smaller spoon I can get it in there I want to make my tartar sauce and all the recipes I looked at pretty much said the same thing to combine pickle relish with mayonnaise if you want extra zing you can put some cayenne pepper in there take a little taste of that there it is I'm gonna add some salt of that I think I think it would benefit from maybe a quarter to a half a teaspoon of salt so there are my last two pieces of fish cooked beautifully golden that beautiful look at that wonderful now my oil is plenty hot enough so now once again I'm going to add my fries trying to do this carefully so I don't get any splash back this is the third cooking on these fries so now on a fry these I'm about three to five minutes until they're really golden and crisp and then we'll be ready to eat okay so how I would plate this I'm gonna get a piece of my fish I got this beautiful rustic plate from a student ceramic sale and then I want to put my french fries look how beautifully golden those are nice and golden-brown after I took these out of the oil i salted them well I can tell by the way they feel with tongs that they're nice and crisp here is my tartar sauce and if you like a tart tartar sauce you can make that make it with dill pickle relish rather than sweet pickle relish and then the only time I ever ever use ketchup is on french fries I don't like french fries I don't like ketchup rather but I love it on french fries so there it is I want to see how that tastes take a little fork of my tartar sauce here some of my fish Chris mm-hmm oh that is so good that Cod is good and my french fries crisp on the outside tender on the inside oh those are good okay that's why I don't like ketchup it's very tart it's the vinegar in it so excuse me I'm gonna go enjoy my fish and chips as a post script I wanted to mention that if I were to do this again I would not do the black cod fish the reason why is it's not a firm white fish it's a very soft wet white fish and after it's cooked its releases a lot of juices which turns that crisp coating into a soggy blanket if I were to do this again I would look for Alaska pollock the pollock is closely related to the Atlantic cod so it sounds like it's an excellent fish I did some research and that's what a lot of the local restaurants use they use alaska pollock for a printable PDF copy of this recipe with step-by-step photographs visit the white trash cooking website and look on the homepage or in the recipe archive

Channel: Mobile Home Gourmet

Views: 1,036,030

Rating: 4.5954819 out of 5

Keywords: Recipe, Cooking, Tartar sauce, Frying, Seafood, ASMR

Id: HUaW5yK8uuc

Length: 23min 49sec (1429 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 14 2013