Go to the Recipe: Fish and Chips
Not studio quality photos, sorry. The psylium sub worked fine. I used 5 grams of it with 600 grams water. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless you have the time to play. It did work well.
I wasn't able to use the batter immediately, it sat in the fridge for a bit until cook time. I did add 80 grams of EverCrisp from Modernist Pantry which helped a good bit as I also had a hold time in the oven at 150 deg F after frying.
Next time I will use fingers instead of tongs for batter dipping. That caused some of the crust flake of during the fry exactly where the tong bite was.
VERY moist inside, CRISPY crust outside. Excellent recipe/mothod. I was in UK a few months ago and though this was equal to what I had there in the pubs. Definitely my best attempt. Next time I will have the M50.
I'll also drain the batter less.
This is a winner that I'll be doing often when the cod loin goes on sale. I have the remaining 5 pounds in the fridge turning into baccala.
Hello there - going to give this recipe a shot. I get why you are using Methyl50, but I don't have any. I do have some psyllium and experiment with using that as a substitute this round. I will followup after the cook on how that works. Everything else will be the same. BTW i'm a huge fan of modernist pantry. Just didn't have any M50 on hand.
Hello Wes. Unfortunately I haven't explored resting the fish in pre-batter and flour in advance. There is a chance it might work just fine. What I expect could happen is you might run into issues with the cake flour hydrating and sticking to whatever surface it's resting on or if it's resting in the flour it will become too "bready".
I recommend giving this a test a couple days before the event to make sure it works before going full send. A safe backup day of would be go through the complete breading process but do about 10 portions at a time. I'm sure the fish can hangout in the flour for about 30 min no problem but can't confirm if overnight works. Excited to hear how it turns out, good luck!
Hi all, I'm going to be making fish and chips for a fish fry. I'd like to be doing a beer batter, but it will be for about 80 people, which obviously presents challenges for a workflow. I'll have people available the day before for prep steps, and then two people manning the fry station (plus a busser) for the night of.
Any recommendations on how to do this? I am thinking of pre-batter / flour a few hours ahead of time, and then having someone dipping and tossing into the oil at the moment of frying. But would it be better for the fish to all be sitting in the batter and pulling for the fry?
Any thought would be appreciated! Previous years have involved doing a cornmeal dry breading ahead of time. This makes it very easy to do ahead of time and simply fry right before, but I don't love cornmeal breading!
What are the advantages of methylcellulose over something like trisol here?
Hi Andres, the methylcellulose hydrates and gels as it heats, creating a light barrier between the fish and the breading to keep the moisture from the fish from making the crust soggy. This gives you a crispier end result.
what is the actual function of the Methylcellulose F50 on the fish and how does it works
Hi Merridith, sorry that you are having some inconsistencies. Lets try to problem solve this. Since you had success then two failures are there any ingredient changes that you are aware of from the first batch to the second? The fish could be a factor as well. fresh vs frozen. let us know
The first time I made this it came out perfectly. The second time - following all the steps exactly - it came out gooey and cake-y on the inside. Tonight I made it and it was still gooey, though not cake-y, on the inside. What is the cure?
Same thing. Tried not adding salt and baking powder to the batter (cake flour already contains both), very little has changed. Gonna try to dissolve the brine with 1-1 volume of water. Maybe the regular salt (not kosher salt) wasn't the right call. I don't know
I have just made the beer battered fish for the first time. I find that the fish is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to salty. I think the brine is too salty- tooooo salty. I think next time i will try to reduce the salt to 100 g or less and less salt in the beer batter recipe as well - maybe half the amount. can I suggest that the recipe to be re tested again as it is too salty.
Where can I purchase the fry thermometer you are using here?
@Johann Thorsson How long did you brine them for, and how much fish did you use?
How would you modify this recipe if you wanted to make British style fish and chips where the fish is a full fillet of fish rather than small pieces?
Why did you guys use cake flour and not bread flour? Won't the cake flour absorb more oil and get soggy sooner than the bread flour?
Not sure where I went wrong but fish came out saltier than if I ate it right out of the sea. Unfortunate since the texture (fish and batter) was amazing. I think I'll try skipping the brine next time.
Anyone else notice the "newspaper" they are using to plate with at 1:52 shows a blow up dolls' tit on it?!?! HAHAHA
Get your heads outta the gutter Chef Steps!!!!
I made a similar dish for Christmas eve but I ran a simple ( not beer) batter through a cream whipper first - AMAZING results- try it Pieces of fish dusted in plain or spelt flour then dipped in the whipped batter and then fried- Light - delicate crisp beautifully cooked fish
I've had my best results subbing cornstarch for half of the flour, increasing the vodka to beer ratio to 35/65, and dispensing to order from a soda siphon. No notable difference in flavor, and the fish will stay crispy for a couple of hours.
What type of oil are you using in this recipe?
Killer.
Anybody know how long I can keep the Methylcellulose solution around for? must it remain refrigerated at all times?
If you eat right away are you ok not using the methocellulose?
I make Chicken Katsu all the time and I brine the chicken for ~30 minutes, after pounding the breast to ~2cm thickness and coat with panko instead of batter; it's cooked in oil at ~300f for roughly 5 minutes. I think the extra step of pre-cooking the chicken is unnecessary as the katsu comes out juicy and tender already. I would be interested to trying this method out with chicken and batter as well.
You should be fine, must brine the fish a touch longer and dry off with a napkin before battering. You can also sub more vodka for water. The fish will be amazing, just wont stay as crispy for as long
Try it with Crisp Coat.
I don't have the Methlycellulose but do have something called Batter Binder which is a modified starch refined with maize and Crisp Coat which is a high amylose corm starch with tapioca dextrin. Both were purchased from Modernist Pantry. Would either of these work as a substitute or should I add lengthy M word to my kitchen?
Is it possible to leave out the Methlycellulose? Can't find it anywhere in Perth Australia. And if I did leave it out would it make a huge difference to the final product? Thank you
Tried this and had very good results. My glitch was leaving the potato in the sous vide about 1 minute too long. All good but a few broken fries that would have been cooler - if they were full length. I used Halibut for the fish and Russets for the spuds. BTW this was a 1/2 recipe as there are only two of us. For me the fish was super light and crispy. it cooked for 3 min +- 10 sec. The cake flour was from KAF.
I am interested if similar technique could be used for chicken - say if we par cook sous vide and then quick fry for the crispy texture using a similar pre-batter. comments?
what would be your advises for the steps of minimizing cooking time in case you are making a huge amount of portions? for how long would it be possible to keep the fillets after brining; and would it be better to just keep them in the brine in the chiller; i doubt because the salt and sugar in the solution will surely eventually make them tough; or brine the fillets remove and store them in the chiller, or perhaps remove from the brine and store them in plain distilled water in the chiller? ... Thank you so much for all sharing your experience and knowledge guys!!!!
Alternative: Delete methylcellulose. Know how to deep fry things. Use a good recipe for the batter.
Hi Ben,
Thanks for your reply! I posted pictures of the outcome (not sure how to properly permalink): https://d3awvtnmmsvyot.cloudfront.net/api/file/7gA...
I was using standard russets from the market. I tried to research the difference between standard supermarket idaho russets from Russet Burbank potatoes.
I'm not sure on the size exactly but you can see it in the picture above. I'd say I got ~6 fried per potato (I'd call them medium size). Looking at the thick cut fry video it looked like you got closer to 4 per potato. Also, something not clear in the video, when you show the sous vide step you show one bag which supposedly contains all 1200g of potato in one layer. Was this one of many bags? I had two bags with ~double layer, which may be a sign I cut them WAY too small.
I did do the density test as well, although I couldn't find any of them which legitimately passed both tests. Some seemed to pass one of the tests, but I'm not sure any of those really passed the second test (as another user commented on one of the vids).
I'm less concerned about these steps as the potatos seemed great on the inside when I tested them after the second step. But there was something in that process that ruined it at the end. Would overcook on either fry cause the inside to compress like a log?
I really should try the fries again, especially once I get a proper Sous Vide setup.
oh yeah.
Not cooling the methylcellulose solution properly before using will definitely be a factor in the fish remaining crispy. Unfortunately, yes when it comes to frying so many different things, timing is always going to be an issue. Using two fryers or a larger fryer(so your batches can be larger) will always help. Im curious about your fries? What type of potato were you using? Do you know what dimensions you cut them? Also, did you use the density test? Cheers
I had a decent go of this but unfortunately made a few mistakes. Learn from me!
1. Mixed beer batter too early. I should have mixed right before using, but I did it about an hour and a half before. This meant the batter was thicker upon application. Not the worst thing in the world but not great.
2. I fried in small batches (about 2 pieces at a time). This is ideal, but it meant with one pot of oil and about a pound of fish, the entire frying time for the fish alone was about 12 - 15 minutes. Add to that the time to fry the chips and all but two pieces of fish were soggy by the time we actually ate.
3. Methlycellulose prebatter: I realized after the fact that I hadn’t iced down the methylcellulose after it came off the stove and I definitely didn’t wait overnight. Could this have been a factor in losing crispiness after a short period?
4. If you are going to follow the thick cut chips recipe, actually cut them thick! I thought I was cutting them thick, but when I went back and looked again, they really weren't that thick. This would have been fine if I had followed the thin cut fries recipe, but I didn't. The fries were actually pretty good (although not crunchy) after the first fry (second cook). I cooked them for 3-4 minutes subsequently in the final fry and I must have overcooked them with this method because they became very dense, hard packed, and gross. Not so much crispy in the desired way. Very depressing given all of the work involved. It was almost like you took mashed potatoes and put them in a mold and pressed until extremely compacted
5. I tried to use the ghetto sous vide cooler method and I found that even in the short 20-25 minute time, I lost ~15 degrees of heat (I also wrapped the cooler in towels). The cook took closer to 40 minutes
Question: Should the fish have gone soggy so quickly ~30 minutes? How did you do so much fish and so many fries in such small batches and still get crispy results for both? The video of grant eating the fish looks straight from the fryer, not one of the final plated pieces. Is the only way around this to cook less / get another pot?
Can I use the brine for shrimp???
- originally posted by moyonut
You are right, you can if you can measure the smaller amount of ingredients and dip into 255 ml of liquid.
- originally posted by Grant Lee Crilly
i think 510g of prebatter is a bit too much for 8 portion of fish. cutting down the prebatter by 1/2 would be fine i think? correct me if i am wrong please
what does the pre-batter do?
- originally posted by Guest
Yes, the various cellulosic gums have extremely different properties and are often not at all interchangable. This is the case with the F50. I believe Modernist Pantry sells F50.
I tried the recipe today, but since I didn't have F50, I used Mecel from DCDuby. I ended up with a big gelatinous blob in the bottom of the container when I took out of the fridge. Any ideas why?
Glad it worked well for you.
Thanks for this recipe! We used large-mouth bass we caught today with this, and even the non-fish lovers in our party raved about it. Perfect crust!
Cake flour is specially modified via the chlorination process in a way that allows the starch to absorb higher levels of fat and handle high levels of sugar. Unfortunately, this product is not available within the EU, although when I lived in the UK I was able to order it from the US via the internet (look for Soft as Silk cake flour). Sadly heating flour will not do the job. I would recommend you look for a low-gluten, soft wheat pastry flour as a substitute.
Chris, is the cake flour (not available in the UK) a form of wheat dextrin?Could I turn ordinary AP flour into it by heating in the oven/microwave to 130c?
Hi John — That's what we use the methocellulose for, it helps keep the batter crisp for longer.
Ok, tried this out yesterday, only with chicken instead of fish. Worked pretty good, but had to do without the Methylcellulose, and I'm not sure we have what's called cake flour here in Norway, so I made my own (flour + cornstarch, is this the correct way?). The fried chicken seemed to turn out very crispy in the beginning, but not long after they sort of turned soggy and soft. Any tips on how to keep the crispness for longer after frying? Thanks
I would expect a very different result. Although, now that I think about it, if you plunged in to liquid nitrogen and then kept frozen until frying, that might work really well. Worth trying.
Can you freeze the battered fish and fry later?
- originally posted by Hint
