**The Art of Making Perfect Fish and Chips**

When it comes to making fish and chips, there's an art to it that requires patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to experiment with different techniques. In this guide, we'll walk you through the process of creating perfect fish and chips, from preparing the ingredients to cooking the batter.

**Preparing the Baking Powder**

The first step in making fish and chips is to mix the baking powder with other ingredients. The chef advises not to worry too much about this stage, as long as it's mixed enough for the baking powder to do its thing. To achieve this, mix the baking powder with a small amount of liquid until it forms a smooth paste. This will help the batter adhere evenly to the fish.

**Cutting the Fish**

Next, cut the fish into large chunks, similar in size to those served at restaurants. Aim for six to eight ounces per portion, as this is a good middle range for a serving of fish and chips. The chef emphasizes the importance of cutting the fish in a bias, trying to maintain an even thickness throughout.

**Battering the Fish**

With the fish prepared, it's time to batter it. This is where the magic happens, and the batter forms a crispy crust on the outside while keeping the fish moist and tender inside. The chef recommends shaking the fish vigorously when it hits the hot oil, as this helps the batter form a uniform layer.

**Cooking the Batter**

With the fish battered, it's time to cook it in the hot oil. The chef advises against disturbing the batter too much, as this can ruin the delicate crust that forms on the outside. Instead, use a gentle touch to ensure the batter adheres evenly to the fish. Cook for six minutes total, or until the batter is golden brown and crispy.

**Adding Sea Salt**

Once the fish is cooked, remove it from the oil and sprinkle with flaky sea salt. This adds a burst of flavor to the dish without overpowering the other ingredients. The chef notes that using lighter beers like Guinness in the batter makes all the difference, as they add a subtle flavor without overpowering the dish.

**Serving Fish and Chips**

Finally, it's time to serve the fish and chips. Be careful when handling the hot plates, as the fish will stay crispy for up to 20 minutes after cooking. To plate, carefully place the fish on top of a bed of chunky tartar sauce, which adds a tangy flavor to the dish. The chef notes that using a tiny atomizer filled with vinegar is essential for adding an aroma and subtle flavor to the dish.

**Tips from the Chef**

Throughout the process, our chef offers words of wisdom and caution. "You don't want to disturb this too much," he advises when handling the batter. And, "be careful when you're picking up the fish." With patience and attention to detail, it's possible to create perfect fish and chips that will impress even the most discerning diners.

**The Importance of Practice**

As with any culinary skill, making perfect fish and chips requires practice. Our chef notes that it takes time and experimentation to get the batter just right, but with persistence and patience, you'll be whipping up delicious batches in no time. And remember, as our chef says, "it's all about the technique."

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello Cheerio top of the morning my name is Ed sheminsky I'm the chef Dame in the Greenwich Village and I'm here to make fish and chips for you to start we're going to cure our Heat this is a large local flaky white fish similar to Cod um all the Cod Fisheries on the eastern coast of the US are pretty much depleted so we use hake it's a nice local option so we're going to add salt and lemon zest it'll fry up a lot better if there's less moisture content in the fish you take the salt and like from a height you want to spread it pretty evenly over the top side of the fish and then zest one lemon over the top side too so seasoned pretty aggressively like a little more salt than you would think you might need um because it's quite a thick piece of fish and it's going to be the last seasoning we put in it is this until we take it out of the batter once the fish is cured and you've like rubbed The Cure in a little bit leave it over ice in the fridge for three to four hours Splash firms up and then we're gonna wash it off now we're gonna start preparing the potatoes so you need a pot of salted water to season it like you would the seed and we're gonna triple cook them so the first time peel them chop them into large wedges and then blanch them for about 10 minutes until they get super soft and fluffy they've been going for like 10 minutes um a little more than that there you can see as I pull them out they're like starting to get fluffy around the edges on the outside starting to break down a little bit and then you want to be able to pinch them and they start to fall apart so I'm going to take them out gently being careful not to break them up too much when you take them out because again you're like looking for the thick chunky shape of a proper chip but you do not want to have like tiny little mashed potato bits because that's not fun and onto a cheat tray with a rack on top of it and the rack helps the air circulate cool it a little more yeah let them cool for a little bit on the counter and then when the cooler to the touch you could put them in the fridge and leave them there for three to four hours or so until they get really cool so now we make our tartar sauce and get that ready before we go and Fry the fish so the first step it's a pretty simple tartar sauce equal parts creme fraiche and mayonnaise combine these two into a bowl and then all the traditional seasons of tartar sauce pick a little Dill ketchup with fish and chips is sacrilege although anyone under the age of 18 can do whatever they want because they catch up on everything I think all you need is some more vinegar the lemon um and then the tartar sauce and we'll chop up our cornichons and our Capers quite a lot of chunks of stuff because you want a chunky tartar sauce like you don't want one that's just otherwise it would be mayonnaise you know but this is this is not mayonnaise tartar sauce um and then lemon zest a little bit of salt a little bit of pepper and to make this recipe you must go to the vice Munchies garden and pick chives fresh before you chop them you definitely don't have to do that and just mix all that together then you end up with this nice chunky tartar sauce we'll let this chill um and then we'll get on to Frying the potatoes and fish now we're gonna cook the potatoes the first time in the oil so we're frying these now at 300 degrees just until they're a little golden brown on the outside and then fully cooked through on the inside and it should take us about 10 minutes to do that make sure it doesn't drop too far below 300 or doesn't get too hot too you don't want to move this too much so you could now as long as you're keeping an eye on the level of the oil and checking that it's not going to explode you can now go and do something else for a few minutes because if you stir them and shake them around too much they're going to break up even more which you do not want these have been cooking for 15 minutes or so I think um but you can see the edges of the fries are starting to get a little golden brown and they're crinkly and they've absorbed some of the oil so when we fry them at a second second time at a higher temperature they're going to get super super crispy and they're like creamy and fluffy on the inside this is the kind of time you want to take them out and you see her being gentle when we do so so they don't break up anymore we're gonna let them cool down again and we'll turn the fryer oil up we'll make our batter um and then we'll fry our fish oh yeah I should I've also got to do a better job of doing an English accent because last time I did one of these videos Everyone said I sounded Australian um so how embarrassing I know um so I say old boy um go to tipa tip our flower into the into the pot of the bowl and then we'll add our right now how we normally sound We'll add the the rice flour so it's a little more rice flour than regular AP flour and then baking powder a lot of baking powder and that gives it the nice puff and Rise That's essential to get that like craggly Airy batter vodka and beer it's very important you try the beer first it's good and don't drink too much of it because you're playing with hot oil and then 200 milliliters of beer you want all of these ingredients to be cold because you have a larger temperature Delta between the hot oil and the cold batter the quicker the crust forms the less frying the fish does and the more frying the batter does the fish inside the steams and the batter just mix this together it's a very simple batter a few ingredients then don't overwork it if you build up the gluten and whisk the by whisking the flour too much you get cake Not Butter which you don't want and the lumps are kind of fine you wouldn't worry about that too much just like mix it enough so that the baking powder can do its thing I'll put this in the fridge to chill for a little bit it takes like a couple minutes for the baking powder to activate when you shoot for Munchies they give you four of these things before you turn the camera on so you'll get a little loopy all right we're going to cut the fish into the largest kind of chunks like we do at the restaurant on a bias trying to make sure they all stay the same kind of thickness six to eight ounces is a good sort of middle range um size for a portion of fish and chips if these look small when they're battered they're going to look pretty big um this stage you're going to get your fingers very close to Hot Oil so there's no other real way to do it unfortunately just be careful when you drop this in you're gonna see and explain whilst they do it but it's important that you shake the fish when it hits the oil it helps learn a little bit of the oil underneath and puff up the batter so you see what I mean where it like starts bubbly bubbling I made his fish and chips batter and I burnt myself it's not what I want to hear you don't want to disturb this too much but you do want to make sure the batter is sticking to the top of the fish like a tempura technique to take a little bit of the batter and drizzle it on top it'll help give you some like more definition six minutes total from when it hits the oil to coming out and then also when it comes out it's got a lot of hot oil on the outside it's going to keep the cooking process and it's you know the batter forms a crust and the fish keep steaming inside so if you have a meat thermometer or a cake tester or something that's probably the best way to check whether it's done it's a good sign if you're getting pretty golden brown that were nearly cooked so we can take these out and check them and all the hard work you put into making that batter and dropping it in and shaking it the right way has formed this beautiful crust on the outside that's craggly and Airy and Flaky you do not want to ruin all that hard work now by pulling it out just yanking it around and throwing around you know that's a fragile batter on the outside um so just be careful with that and then because we're going to fry a couple more just take all those little pieces of batter out and then so once it's out of the fryer pretty quickly we hit it with some flaky sea salt should be kind of salty efficiency you don't want it under seasoned and now we'll fire the chips and this will be much quicker than the fish and then we're ready to Plate up be careful when you drop those in too Guinness in particular lager is essential for the batter I didn't say that by the way it's got to be it's got to be a lighter bed don't put ipas in a fish and chip better that's gross so this is once the potatoes are out and they get to season them with salt and then we're ready to Plate up all right so now it's hot so be careful when you're putting on a plate but if you have Chef hands you just pick it up be careful picking up the fish and this will stay pretty crunchy for a while so you could leave this for definitely 20-30 minutes so you can go pick the kids up from school and come back and have this before you complete your fish and chips you must juggle the lemons a little bit whoa whoa thank you very very nice so some cheeks and there you have your fried fish platter so at the restaurant we use a tiny little one of these this is a atomizer fill it with more vinegar and you can spray everything with this and it gives it the aroma and a little bit of the flavor of the more vinegar but without making it too soggy and then you can add more as you like so now we're going to try some yeah I would go to them and eat this um it's nice to have the chunky tartar sauce no ketchup here as you can see I even though it's very crispy for like 20 minutes all right for this recipe click the link uh beneath oh yeah and also come visit me at name where you can see me in the weeds all night long cooking fish and chips with not gonna nail it um those are my Cooks here we go see you later hello top of the morning I don't know we're going yet when our staff come into the restaurant every day I say hello Cheerio top of the morning how's your uncle but it's uh so let's start with that yeahhello Cheerio top of the morning my name is Ed sheminsky I'm the chef Dame in the Greenwich Village and I'm here to make fish and chips for you to start we're going to cure our Heat this is a large local flaky white fish similar to Cod um all the Cod Fisheries on the eastern coast of the US are pretty much depleted so we use hake it's a nice local option so we're going to add salt and lemon zest it'll fry up a lot better if there's less moisture content in the fish you take the salt and like from a height you want to spread it pretty evenly over the top side of the fish and then zest one lemon over the top side too so seasoned pretty aggressively like a little more salt than you would think you might need um because it's quite a thick piece of fish and it's going to be the last seasoning we put in it is this until we take it out of the batter once the fish is cured and you've like rubbed The Cure in a little bit leave it over ice in the fridge for three to four hours Splash firms up and then we're gonna wash it off now we're gonna start preparing the potatoes so you need a pot of salted water to season it like you would the seed and we're gonna triple cook them so the first time peel them chop them into large wedges and then blanch them for about 10 minutes until they get super soft and fluffy they've been going for like 10 minutes um a little more than that there you can see as I pull them out they're like starting to get fluffy around the edges on the outside starting to break down a little bit and then you want to be able to pinch them and they start to fall apart so I'm going to take them out gently being careful not to break them up too much when you take them out because again you're like looking for the thick chunky shape of a proper chip but you do not want to have like tiny little mashed potato bits because that's not fun and onto a cheat tray with a rack on top of it and the rack helps the air circulate cool it a little more yeah let them cool for a little bit on the counter and then when the cooler to the touch you could put them in the fridge and leave them there for three to four hours or so until they get really cool so now we make our tartar sauce and get that ready before we go and Fry the fish so the first step it's a pretty simple tartar sauce equal parts creme fraiche and mayonnaise combine these two into a bowl and then all the traditional seasons of tartar sauce pick a little Dill ketchup with fish and chips is sacrilege although anyone under the age of 18 can do whatever they want because they catch up on everything I think all you need is some more vinegar the lemon um and then the tartar sauce and we'll chop up our cornichons and our Capers quite a lot of chunks of stuff because you want a chunky tartar sauce like you don't want one that's just otherwise it would be mayonnaise you know but this is this is not mayonnaise tartar sauce um and then lemon zest a little bit of salt a little bit of pepper and to make this recipe you must go to the vice Munchies garden and pick chives fresh before you chop them you definitely don't have to do that and just mix all that together then you end up with this nice chunky tartar sauce we'll let this chill um and then we'll get on to Frying the potatoes and fish now we're gonna cook the potatoes the first time in the oil so we're frying these now at 300 degrees just until they're a little golden brown on the outside and then fully cooked through on the inside and it should take us about 10 minutes to do that make sure it doesn't drop too far below 300 or doesn't get too hot too you don't want to move this too much so you could now as long as you're keeping an eye on the level of the oil and checking that it's not going to explode you can now go and do something else for a few minutes because if you stir them and shake them around too much they're going to break up even more which you do not want these have been cooking for 15 minutes or so I think um but you can see the edges of the fries are starting to get a little golden brown and they're crinkly and they've absorbed some of the oil so when we fry them at a second second time at a higher temperature they're going to get super super crispy and they're like creamy and fluffy on the inside this is the kind of time you want to take them out and you see her being gentle when we do so so they don't break up anymore we're gonna let them cool down again and we'll turn the fryer oil up we'll make our batter um and then we'll fry our fish oh yeah I should I've also got to do a better job of doing an English accent because last time I did one of these videos Everyone said I sounded Australian um so how embarrassing I know um so I say old boy um go to tipa tip our flower into the into the pot of the bowl and then we'll add our right now how we normally sound We'll add the the rice flour so it's a little more rice flour than regular AP flour and then baking powder a lot of baking powder and that gives it the nice puff and Rise That's essential to get that like craggly Airy batter vodka and beer it's very important you try the beer first it's good and don't drink too much of it because you're playing with hot oil and then 200 milliliters of beer you want all of these ingredients to be cold because you have a larger temperature Delta between the hot oil and the cold batter the quicker the crust forms the less frying the fish does and the more frying the batter does the fish inside the steams and the batter just mix this together it's a very simple batter a few ingredients then don't overwork it if you build up the gluten and whisk the by whisking the flour too much you get cake Not Butter which you don't want and the lumps are kind of fine you wouldn't worry about that too much just like mix it enough so that the baking powder can do its thing I'll put this in the fridge to chill for a little bit it takes like a couple minutes for the baking powder to activate when you shoot for Munchies they give you four of these things before you turn the camera on so you'll get a little loopy all right we're going to cut the fish into the largest kind of chunks like we do at the restaurant on a bias trying to make sure they all stay the same kind of thickness six to eight ounces is a good sort of middle range um size for a portion of fish and chips if these look small when they're battered they're going to look pretty big um this stage you're going to get your fingers very close to Hot Oil so there's no other real way to do it unfortunately just be careful when you drop this in you're gonna see and explain whilst they do it but it's important that you shake the fish when it hits the oil it helps learn a little bit of the oil underneath and puff up the batter so you see what I mean where it like starts bubbly bubbling I made his fish and chips batter and I burnt myself it's not what I want to hear you don't want to disturb this too much but you do want to make sure the batter is sticking to the top of the fish like a tempura technique to take a little bit of the batter and drizzle it on top it'll help give you some like more definition six minutes total from when it hits the oil to coming out and then also when it comes out it's got a lot of hot oil on the outside it's going to keep the cooking process and it's you know the batter forms a crust and the fish keep steaming inside so if you have a meat thermometer or a cake tester or something that's probably the best way to check whether it's done it's a good sign if you're getting pretty golden brown that were nearly cooked so we can take these out and check them and all the hard work you put into making that batter and dropping it in and shaking it the right way has formed this beautiful crust on the outside that's craggly and Airy and Flaky you do not want to ruin all that hard work now by pulling it out just yanking it around and throwing around you know that's a fragile batter on the outside um so just be careful with that and then because we're going to fry a couple more just take all those little pieces of batter out and then so once it's out of the fryer pretty quickly we hit it with some flaky sea salt should be kind of salty efficiency you don't want it under seasoned and now we'll fire the chips and this will be much quicker than the fish and then we're ready to Plate up be careful when you drop those in too Guinness in particular lager is essential for the batter I didn't say that by the way it's got to be it's got to be a lighter bed don't put ipas in a fish and chip better that's gross so this is once the potatoes are out and they get to season them with salt and then we're ready to Plate up all right so now it's hot so be careful when you're putting on a plate but if you have Chef hands you just pick it up be careful picking up the fish and this will stay pretty crunchy for a while so you could leave this for definitely 20-30 minutes so you can go pick the kids up from school and come back and have this before you complete your fish and chips you must juggle the lemons a little bit whoa whoa thank you very very nice so some cheeks and there you have your fried fish platter so at the restaurant we use a tiny little one of these this is a atomizer fill it with more vinegar and you can spray everything with this and it gives it the aroma and a little bit of the flavor of the more vinegar but without making it too soggy and then you can add more as you like so now we're going to try some yeah I would go to them and eat this um it's nice to have the chunky tartar sauce no ketchup here as you can see I even though it's very crispy for like 20 minutes all right for this recipe click the link uh beneath oh yeah and also come visit me at name where you can see me in the weeds all night long cooking fish and chips with not gonna nail it um those are my Cooks here we go see you later hello top of the morning I don't know we're going yet when our staff come into the restaurant every day I say hello Cheerio top of the morning how's your uncle but it's uh so let's start with that yeah\n"