Growing up Catholic, I absolutely hated lent. It starts by getting ashes on your forehead. Then you have to give up something that you enjoy. If that isn’t already bad enough, you couldn’t eat meat on Fridays. Who wants to suffer that much? Not me. By the time I could drive myself to school, I’d hit up McDonald’s for a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich in the morning and for a burger before I went home to eat whatever fish dish my mom was cooking up. Religion just wasn’t going to be my thing.
Perhaps if my mom just served fish and chips instead, I would have kept going to church. Not really, but this is a good meal and celebrates its trusty sidekick: tartar sauce. Tartar sauce always freaked me out as a child. First, it suffers bad branding. Tartar, if you’re a kid, is something you only hear when you go to the dentist or on toothpaste commercials. It’s bad. Then it’s usually served along with some lame ass fish dish. Well, I was wrong about you, tartar sauce. I guess you do deserve a day to be celebrated after being persecuted your whole life.
Fish & Chips with Tartar Sauce
4 cod filets
4 or 5 large butter potatoes
Oil for frying
1 cup AP flour
⅔ cup rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 bottle or can of beer
~⅔ cup seltzer
Tartar Sauce
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp sour cream
1 shallot, minced
2 sweet gherkins, minced
2 baby kosher dill pickles, minced
1 tbsp capers, drained and minced
Dill
Preheat your oil ,in a deep fryer or large pot, to 325 degrees and set your oven to warm.
While the oil heats up, dab the fish and gently press with paper towels to remove as much moisture as possible. Season with salt and let sit until ready to fry.
Peel the potatoes and slice into large fries. Once the oil has reached temp, drop in the potatoes and braise for 3 minutes. Remove to a rack-lined baking sheet and reserve.
Increase the oil temperature to 355 degrees. While the oil heats up, prepare the batter by mixing together the flours, baking powder, seasoning with some salt and pepper. Dab the fish again and place the filets in the flour to dredge the fish. Remove excess flour mixture from the fish and set aside. Then, add in the beer and seltzer to the flour mixture to create a thick batter.
Dip the fish into the batter to thoroughly coat. Pull the fish out and allow excess batter to drip back into the bowl. Slowly submerge the fish into the oil, taking about 30 seconds or so to setup the underside batter coating before allowing the fish filet to sink down into the frying oil. Fry for 8 minutes, flipping halfway through.
When just golden-brown, remove the fish from the oil and set on a rack-lined baking sheet. Season with salt and place in the warm oven to hold. Repeat with any remaining filets then move on to finishing the fries, setting them back in the oil for about 6 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the tartar sauce by whisking together the ingredients in a bowl. Season with a light pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
When the fries are ready, place them in a large bowl and season with salt and pepper. I like to add in some parmesan, parsley and garlic salt as well. Serve everything immediately with some lemon wedges.
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Copyright 2023, Brendan McCann, All Rights Reserved.
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