Perfect fish & chips with Tartar sauce and mushy peas

By Birgitta

Heston Blumenthal

Ideally, get a whole turbot weighing 2.5kg and fillet it yourself or get the fishmonger to do it. If you can’t, get four individual ones.

No matter how good your fish, it can be ruined by bad batter. Batter has to insulate the fish from the high heat of the fryer and also turn a crunchy, crusty brown in the time it takes for the fish to cook. So it was vital to develop a batter that suited the thickness of an average turbot fillet. A water-based batter takes a long time to go brown, because all the water has to evaporate before it will cook. Vodka is more volatile, so it evaporates much more quickly. It has the added benefit of not developing the gluten in the flour the way water does, which means you get a crisper crust. Using lager and a soda siphon enhances the batter’s crunchiness by introducing lots of bubbles that give it a marvellous lightness.

Good chips also depend on the removal of liquid. Allowing the chips to cool right down between each stage of cooking gets rid of much of the moisture that would otherwise escape from the chip as steam during frying, causing a soggy exterior. Instead, you’ll have a crisp crust and a fluffy centre — the perfect chip. And if you use an atomiser to spray the chips — and the room — with the juice from a jar of pickled onions, the smell will be a fantastic nostalgia trigger, conjuring up memories of your favourite fish-and-chip shop.

Special equipment:
Soda siphon (plus CO2 charges), digital probe, deep-fat fryer, atomiser (optional).

Timing:
Making the batter is easy, but it needs to chill for at least half an hour in the fridge, after which, in order to keep the bubbles in, speed is the name of the game.

Cooking the chips is a three-stage process; it’s not complicated, but it takes a little longer, because the chips have to cool down before and after the first frying. Preparing the chips to this point and leaving them overnight in the fridge will make a fish-and- chip supper a quick and simple affair.

Ingredients

• For the fish:
• 200 g plain flour
• 200 g Doves Farm white rice flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp honey
• 300 ml vodka
• 300 ml lager (Kronenbourg 1664 works well)
• 2-3 litres groundnut (peanut) oil
• 4 large turbot fillets, 2–3cm thick
• Table salt and freshly ground black pepper
• For the chips:
• 1.2 kg arran victory or maris piper potatoes
• 2 –3 litres groundnut (peanut) oil
• Table salt and sea salt
• For the Tartar sauce:
• 3-4 small shallots, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 egg, hard boiled
• 3 tbsp gherkins, finely diced
• 3 tbsp capers, chopped
• 20 tarragon leaves, finely chopped
• 4 tbsp parsley leaves, finely chopped
• 4 tbsp chervil, finely chopped
• 4 tbsp chives, finely chopped
• 150 ml mayonnaise
• 30 ml whipped cream
• For the mushy peas:
• 475 g frozen peas (I like Birds Eye)
• 65 g butter
• 6 mint leaves
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• To serve:
• 1 jar of onions pickled in malt or white-wine vinegar (whichever is the more evocative)
• 1 atomiser
• Decant the pickling juice from the jar of pickled onions into the atomiser and squirt it around the room or on the fish and chips.

Details

Servings 4
Adapted from timesonline.co.uk

Preparation

Step 1

For the fish:
1 Tip the plain flour, rice flour and baking powder into a bowl. Put the honey and vodka into a jug, stir, then add to the flour to create a batter mix. Open the lager and stir it into the batter until just combined. It doesn’t matter if the consistency is a little lumpy. The most important thing is to open the lager just before stirring and transferring to the siphon (see step 2), to retain as many bubbles as possible.

2 Transfer the batter to a jug, then pour it into a soda siphon. Charge the siphon with three CO2 charges and put it in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.

3 In a large pan or casserole, put enough groundnut oil to cover the fish. Heat it to 220C/425F, using the digital probe to check the temperature. (It’s best not to use a deep- fat fryer for this, because the temperature fluctuates too much and has trouble reaching 220C/425F.

4 Rinse the turbot fillets and dry them with paper towels. Season well, then dust with rice flour — this ensures the batter sticks to the fillets. Shake off any excess flour.

5 Remove the siphon from the fridge. Shake it vigorously, then squirt enough batter to cover a fillet into a medium-sized bowl. (Don’t squirt out too much — the batter begins to lose its bubbles as soon as it leaves the siphon.) Dip the fillet into the foamy batter. When it is completely coated, lower the fillet head first into the oil holding it by the narrow tail end to avoid splashes.

6 As the fish fries, drizzle a little extra batter over it, to give a lovely crusty exterior. When it has turned a light-golden brown, which will take 1-2 minutes, turn the fillet over and drizzle more batter on that side.

7 Let the fish cook for another minute or so, until it has coloured to a deeper golden brown, then remove it from the oil. Use the digital probe to check it is cooked: insert the probe into the thickest part of the fish — once it reads 40C/105F, the fillet should be set aside. The residual heat will cook it to a temperature of 45C/113F.

8 Repeat the above process with the remaining fillets.


For the chips:
1 Wash and peel the potatoes, then cut them into chips about 1.5cm thick. (Don’t worry too much about making them all the same size: the variation will give a greater range of textures.) As soon as the chips are cut, place them in a bowl under cold running water for 2-3 minutes, to rinse off some of the starch, then drain.

2 Bring a large pan or casserole of salted water to the boil (adding 10g salt per litre of water), add the chips, bring back to the boil and then simmer until the chips have almost broken up (it’s the fissures that form as the potato breaks up that trap the fat, creating a crunchy crust). It is important to make sure the simmer is gentle, so that the potatoes don’t start to fall apart before they have cooked through.

3 Using a slotted spoon, carefully lift the potatoes out of the water and place on a cake rack. Leave to cool, then put in the fridge until cold. (The dry air of the fridge makes a good environment in which to remove excess moisture from the chips via evaporation.)

4 Pour enough groundnut oil to cover the chips into a deep-fat fryer and heat it to 130C/250F. Plunge in the chips and allow them to cook until they take on a dry appearance and are slightly coloured.

5 Remove the chips and drain off the excess fat. Place them on a cake rack and allow to cool, then return to the fridge until cold.

6 Reheat the groundnut oil to 190C/375F. Plunge in the chips and cook until golden brown. This will take 8-10 minutes.

7 Drain the chips, season well with a mixture of table and sea salt, then pile next to the fish fillets.


For the Tartar sauce:
Place the shallots in boiling water until translucent — this should take about 30 seconds. Remove from the boiling water and place immediately in a bowl of iced water. Remove from the iced water, then set aside.

Finely dice the egg white, then place in a bowl with the gherkins, capers and prepared shallots. Pass the egg yolk through a sieve, then add it to the bowl. Next, add the herbs and mayonnaise, then fold in the whipped cream.

For the mushy peas:
1 Defrost the frozen peas in a large pot filled with cool water — this should take a only few minutes. Strain, shaking off as much excess water as possible.

2 Reserve about one-fifth of the peas.Place the remaining peas into a sauté pan, along with the butter and 50ml water. Cook over a medium heat until all the water has evaporated and the peas are cooked through. If your water is very hard, it would be best to buy some bottled water (or, even better, de-ionized car-battery water) to use when cooking the peas, as this will help to keep their colour bright green.

3 Place the cooked peas into a blender (or use a stick blender) and purée. While blending, adjust the taste by adding the mint leaves and the salt and pepper.

4 Fold in the reserved peas and serve.