How to Make the Best Fish & Chips | Basics with Babish

Hey folks, I am very excited to have received the first physical copy of the Basics with Babish cookbook, available to pre-order now. Not only is it a full inch taller than my last book, it's significantly thicker. That's because it's positively chock-full of words, like my cooking do's and don'ts, a kitchen glossary, an exhaustive exploration of your spice rack, and detailed step-by-step photography. Today, we're looking at the recipe for fried haddock with chips, which, like every recipe in the book, comes with a pithy headnote, a description of how I personally screwed it up, and a troubleshooting Q&A. You can pre-order the Basics with Babish cookbook now. The link is in the video description. ♪♪♪ Since fish and chips is comprised of two items, both deep fried at the time of serving, it behooves us to get all of our prep out of the way first. If you are choosing to participate in the act of homemade tartar sauce making, we're gonna start there. In a bowl, we are combining one cup mayonnaise, preferably homemade, with the juice of one lemon, one tablespoon fresh chopped parsley, two tablespoons fresh chopped dill, and two teaspoons of freshly chopped tarragon. In other words, a little pile of each. Any of these being slightly off isn't gonna be the end of the world. We're also adding two tablespoons of capers, drained and finely chopped, and a quarter cup finely chopped Cornichon pickles, but you could just use some relish if you find yourself in a pickle pickle. Last but not least, a half teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Mix this stuff up until it almost has the consistency of tartar sauce. Cover and refrigerate for up to three days, ideally overnight before serving. Next up, the chips, or French-style fries. I like using Yukon Golds, both for their slow oxidation and their steak-fry texture. To that end, I am peeling and cutting two pounds of Yukon Golds into the thick, imposing form factor most commonly served with fish and chips. Before getting fried into fries, these guys are getting boiled in some heavily salted water that you can optionally spike with a tablespoon of white vinegar, which can help the potatoes retain their form factor while cooking. These are getting boiled for anywhere from eight to 12 minutes, depending on the thickness of your fries, until very tender, but not quite yet breaking apart. This basically allows the potato to be fully cooked so that we can fry it fast and hot, giving us potatoes with crisp exteriors and fluffy, tender interiors. Spread these guys out on a wire rack, make sure nobody's overlapping, and let them cool to room temperature before frying about 30 minutes, during which time we can contend with our cod, or haddock in this case, any thick, mild, tender white fish will do. I'm gonna slice this guy across the grain into individual fillets before noticing that it hasn't properly been deboned. Before frying, you should remove these translucent pin bones with tweezers, running your finger along the length of the fillet to feel for any sharp spots. Once it's certified boneless, you can break it down into two to three inch wide fillets. Since the tail piece is so thin, I'm gonna leave it a little bit longer and fry it first when the oil is extra hot and it can cook through a little more quickly. Next and last in our preparatory to-do list, aka mise en place, is to ready our dredge and batter. For the dredge, I'm combining half a cup of cornstarch with two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a generous pinch of kosher salt, whisked together until evenly combined. For the batter, in a larger bowl, I'm combining one and a half cups of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon baking powder, half teaspoon paprika, and a quarter teaspoon cayenne pepper, both of which are gonna nicely flavor and color our batter. This is getting whisked together until homogenous and we're not adding beer to it until we're ready to fry, which brings up an important question, which to fry first, fish or chips? Restaurants have the advantage of multiple deep fryers, but we've only got one. So really it's a question of who's gonna hold up better being kept warm in the oven. We let both the fish and chips hang out in a low oven for about 15 minutes and found that while the potatoes were still pretty crisp, they had degraded since being freshly fried. The fish, however, remained crispy and still pretty juicy after 15 minutes at 250 degrees Fahrenheit, which means we're frying the fish first, which means it's time to add one and a half to two cups of light lager to our flour, baking powder, and spice mixture. Start with one and a half cups, whisk together, and add more as needed to achieve a paint-like consistency. The thicker your batter, the thicker of a shell is gonna form around the fish. So like I always say, keep it thin and loose. Arrange your bowls in a side-by-side pattern, generously coat your fish in the dredge, shake off any excess, and give it a dunk in the batter. The dredge is what enables the batter to stick to the fish, so make sure that no facet goes uncoated. Once you've got two pieces swimming in the batter, it's time to head over to the stovetop where we've got two quarts of neutral flavored oil like peanut, vegetable, or canola heated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Shake off the excess batter and gently lower in the fish, frying for anywhere from five to eight minutes depending on the thickness of your fish, how quickly your oil cools off when it's dropped in, and how powerful your burner is, enabling it to return to target temperature. Fish only needs to cook to 145 degrees Fahrenheit, so if it looks done, it probably is done. Drain on paper towels or a wire rack and generously salt fresh out of the oil. Once you're done frying the fish, you wanna skim out all the batter detritus from the oil because next up, we're frying the chips, this time at a slightly lower 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Since these guys are already cooked through, the only goal here is to get them brown, which shouldn't take more than two to four minutes. As you can see, I topped up the oil perhaps a bit too generously, so don't be afraid to ladle some out to a nearby saucepan if things get too scary, and don't be afraid to crank the heat when you add the fries. Especially early on, it can plummet by as much as 50 degrees. These likewise are getting drained on paper towels or a wire rack and immediately salted upon exit. Don't be too discouraged if your potatoes brown a little patchy, this apparently has to do with the age of the potatoes and not your abilities as a cook. Last thing left to do is plate everybody up with tartar sauce and lemon wedges, and there you have it, the world's favorite fully deep fried meal, fish and chips. As you can see, the batter fries up into a nice, thin, crisp layer. Rather than the big, gummy fish burrito that normally plagues Friday night fish fries here in the States, the tartar sauce is fresh and flavorful and the chips are, well, chips. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go find some malt vinegar. This recipe and more than 100 others in the Basics with Babish cookbook are available for pre-order now. The link's in the video description and the book arrives October 24th.