Perfect Golden Batter

[AlanHo]

Few people are able to produce at home that crisp and crunchy light golden batter on fish that seems to be the speciality of fish restaurants in northern foreign places like Whitby and its surrounds.

You need two main essentials.

• A deep fat fryer
  containing sunflower or rapeseed vegetable oil heated to 190 centigrade.
  Shallow frying will just not work.
  
  
  
• A proper batter mix
  75 ml Plain flour
  75 ml Cornflour
  75 ml Rice flour (rice flour - not ground rice)
  5 ml Baking powder
  A small bottle of lager (Soda or tonic water can be used instead if you are teetotal)
  

Prepare the fish by wiping away excess moisture with a paper towel and coat it in cornflour.

To prepare the batter.

This must be done immediately before cooking the fish - it must not be left to stand for more than a minute or two.

Sift the three flours and baking powder together into a bowl.

Slowly pour in the lager - stirring continuously - until you get the optimum consistency - not too stiff and not too liquid. Don't worry if there are a few lumps.

Cook yer Fish

Now dip your floured fish into the batter - allow it to drain off the excess - and drop it immediately into the deep fat fryer. Most fish needs to be cooked no more than 3 to 4 minutes depending on how thick the fish is. Cooked even slightly too long causes fish to be tough and dry.

[Irene]

Perhaps we could have a Recipe category as a sub in The Lounge. :D

[andsome]

We stopped frying fish some years ago, the kitchen walls and ceiling were getting too greasy. If we want fried fish we get it from the local Greek Cypriot chippy. We sometime bake it in foil, or cook it in the oven in Campbell's condensed asparagus or celery soup. Salmon I prefer grilled. :D

[catgate]

We stopped frying fish some years ago, the kitchen walls and ceiling were getting too greasy.

It is a mistake that, happily, is made by very few people, but in depth research has yet to be done to find out its cause.

However, it seems that, almost by accident maybe, the traditional way of not using the kitchen walls and ceiling for frying fish is best. The majority of people interviewed so far have indicated that by containing the oil (or even fat) in a suitably heat proof vessel gives better results and also, besides being more predictable, uses much less of the frying medium.

[andsome]

Condensation, in spite of using a cooker hood. :D