Long John Silver's Fish Batter II

By Addie

"Mom got this recipe from somewhere a long time ago and passed it on to me. Just multiply the amounts according to how much fish that you have to fry."

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup water

Preparation

Step 1

Sift dry ingredients. Add water and mix well. Use to coat fish or chicken filets. Cover the fish completely. Deep fry until a nice golden brown.
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REVIEWS: (169)

This batter was excellent! A must-try the next time you want something fried with a very crisp, not too thick coating. Excellent taste as well. I did some chicken tenders, then some fresh flounder fillets, then some shrimp. It was all incredible! Next time I will make some hush puppies, and it will be just like eating at the restaurant! Thanks for posting. :)

I made this batter for fish, turned out really good, nice and crunchy. I did not deep fry the fish, I shallow fried and was surprised the batter stayed on the fish. Excellent!!

I thought the batter was terrific. I used it on scallops, chiken and Fish. They all turned out excellent. My family really enjoyed it.

Fantastic. Easy to make, and the batter stayed on.

This will be my only recipe for fish or onion rings. This made the prettiest fried fish I have ever made, not to mention it tasted great. I made two batches, one for fish ( I did add just a bit of Old Bay Seasoning to the batter) and the other batch I added nothing extra, and made onion rings. PERFECTION!

The basic recipe is almost stand alone for any food to batter and I must say it's almost perfect by itself. I would add that I always start the oil at 375 degrees and never let it drop below 350. As some others have said a little garlic powder and onion salt do make a good addition.

I tried this on onion rings and I took some sweet banana peppers and split them and removed the seeds and battered them and fried to a golden brown, excellent. I think you could batter any thing with this recipe.

This really was an excellent batter. I made it up an hour before I used it as I have heard that this makes batter 'stick' better to whatever you're frying. Anyway, it stuck. Light, crisp and not greasy - exactly what I was looking for.

I rated this recipe with 5 stars, not because it tasted like LJS ( I altered it so I couldn't say how close it would've been.) although, the texture of it, once cooked was so close, if not spot on, but because it was incredibly easy to make, it coated the fish perfectly, and the cracklin's that were produced with the leftover batter were out of this world delicious.
After reading several reviews, I opted to alter the recipe slightly. I doubled the recipe and added another teaspoon of salt, about 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and the zest from half of a medium-large lemon, using a rasp type zester. I also used half water and half whole buttermilk.
As I am typing, my better half is moaning with delight while continually uttering, "Oh, that was good!" We put our plates up about 30 minutes ago and he's been back for more of those cracklin's twice already. I'm thinking of all the things I'll be using this batter for, altering the seasonings for various things.

You people obviously never ate at Long John Silver's. This recipe is NOTHING like theirs. They also use corn flour in their batter. It's also missing a spice that I can't seem to figure out.

I thought the batter was rather bland. It did have a nice thin, crispy texture, though it is not anything like LJS batter. I'll stick to another (beer) batter recipe I found on here.

This is the best batter EVER!!! I don't like fish so I used on chicken and it was wonderful. I love how it coats and makes a lovely coating. It covers so well and it is like it swells up over the food as it cooks. I will use for veggies next time too!!

We tried this recipe with some sole. We'd estimated the amount we'd need, and put the rest in the freezer. After the first batch had been cooked (we cooked in a large frying pan with some oil) we added some extra spices and quick thawed the remaining fish. No dessert for us that night, we had an extra serving of fish instead. This recipe would be good to batter anything....veggies, chicken, fish, apple rings, mini chocolate bars, etc. Just vary the spices to whatever flavour you want and go to it.

I do not see the LJS connection, but it has been a long time since I have eaten there. However, this is an excellent recipe for battering probably anything! I tried it on shrimp first and fish the second time. Both times was great. The food was well coated and crispy with very little effort on my part. My only change was substituting the salt for 1/2 tsp seasoning salt. I do want to play with flavor a bit so I will likely try some different spices again in the near future. Thanks a lot for an easy batter with common ingredients. I will NEVER buy tempura mix again!

First, LJS commercials they say they use pollock as the fish in case anyone was wondering. I guess you can try Cod if you can't get that. I've had problems getting both. I usually prefer Captain D's to LJS but decided I could still buy some LJS and do a side-by-side taste test. I wish more of the reviewers would actually comment on if if actually taste like LJS to them or not, preferably with a a side-by-side taste test if they can. The taste was ok but not really like LJS. I will try it again to be sure. I'm seeing a lot of inconsistency in the pics. Photo 10 looks just like something from LJS or Captain D's. Photo 4,8, and 9 don't look bad either. I think this recipe is missing something from the flavor. Maybe more salt and a couple herbs.

A few mentioned it here, and I totally agree. It tastes okay, but not like LJS batter. There could be here a reason that it seems most recipes miss. The flavor of anything fried, has a lot to do with what type of oil they fry it in. People seem to rave about the egg rolls that I make, and the real reason is that I fry them in Wesson Corn Oil. Many people try to be healthy and fry everything in oils such as olive oil, which is a totally different flavor. Unless we know what LJS uses to fry their battered foods, we have no hope of duplicating the flavor.

My review will be redundant, but everyone was right: this batter is good!!! The batter is light, airy and crunchy. I added garlic salt and a little lemon pepper to the batter, and because I used wheat flour, it needed more water. I pan fried it in peanut oil about 2 minutes on each side. The batter stayed in place...turned out almost like tempura. Keep the pan hot and the fish aren't oily at all. I used it to cook up Pompano and Whiting the DH brought home from the beach.

This recipe is so FREAKIN' AWESOME!! It was a little flat/bland for our taste, but that's why you make a recipe as is first, and doctor it the second time! I do agree that it needs more salt and something else, just not sure what. But DANG! This fried up so beautifully!! The batter stuck to the fish (like everybody said it would) and was so light (non-dense) it was really great!! I was so proud of myself when I showed my husband how good it looked!! 8~) I don't eat fried stuff very often, but I am looking forward to the day when I can make it again. Thanks so much for the recipe!!

We really enjoyed this recipe. The batter was crisp and really complimented the fish. We have made this recipe many times, and I have both deep fried and pan fried with great success. The batter sticks to the fish well. We have even used this batter on chicken, mozzarella sticks, and veggies (zucchini, sweet potatoes, mushrooms, onions, cauliflower, etc). Thanks for a great recipe - a definite keeper.

Tried this tonight with 1 lb. chicken tenders, and used about 1/2" oil in a cast iron skillet. Did two batches...kept 1st half in a 150 deg. oven while frying the other half. It tasted great!!! Thanks!

I've been looking for a crunchy fish batter and I think I found the one. This is so delicious and crunchy. I battered tilapia fish with this and it turned out golden and so pretty. Instead of deep frying it, I fried it in a pan with just a little bit of vegetable oil. My mom loved it too.

Very good fish batter. I used it with pieces of cod fillet. I found it a wee bit bland, so I added a few shakes of garlic and onion powder and increased the salt to the flour mixture. Will try it on shrimp next.

I wanted to add that I fried my fish in a fryer using half canola oil and half butter flavor Crisco: makes the world of difference.



This was perfect light batter for fish and chicken! We thought it was pretty darn close to LJS but like another reviewer stated, the oil has something to do with it also. We enjoyed it, and it was nice and easy to put together too! Thanks for posting.

Like everyone else I agree that this is a great recipe. I upped the salt to nearly a full teaspoon, but other than that I followed the instructions as written. My whole family loved it!

I never had fish like this at LJS!!! This batter is perfect - light and crispy.

WOW This was so much better then Long John Silver's (which I love). I made Chicken and Shrimp with the batter. It was very easy to make as well. Thanks for a great recipe. I accidently cooked way too much so I am going to put the leftovers in the freezer and try and heat it up in the oven.

This turned out wonderful, I did add a lot more salt (about 3 tsp.). Family loved it, and I love that it doesn't have beer or soda in it so it keeps longer. Thanks!