Beer Battered Fish & Chips

I like to cook. I really picked up cooking when I started dating Wes and cooked a couple of meals like the good girlfriend I was. It started off with some of my favorites from home that I usually made myself - mostly chicken recipes.

Well, when we got married, I got more adventurous and looked for recipes of food I liked to eat at restaurants. Fish & chips is one of those meals that is always so satisfying, and I found a relatively easy recipe. I'm all about the easy recipes. So here it is! Don't be intimidated by the frying. It's not that hard! Disclaimer: this is not a recipe I came up with!

Beer Battered Fish & Chips

4 cod fillets cut in half
1/2 cup flour
1 Tb paprika
1Tb garlic
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. pepper
1 egg, beaten
1/2 bottle beer

Mix dry ingredients together and whisk in egg. Slowly add beer until you get a medium consistency batter. This will end up being close to 1/2 a bottle of beer. (Enjoy the rest!) Salt & pepper the fish fillets and dip fish in batter. Shake off any excess before putting it in the oil. Batter should stick to the fish, but not be so thick that it's globbed on there and not so runny that it falls right off.

Heat about 4 cups vegetable oil in a pot until it reaches about 365 degrees. Use a pot where you could fit two or three fillets in at once. Oil should be about 3" deep if you don't use 4 cups of oil. Don't have a candy thermometer to measure the heat? I used a meat thermometer. Not the same, but it'll give you a good idea of the temperature.

Once oil gets to 365, carefully drop the fish into the oil. It may spit up a bit, so be careful. Fish will take about 4-5 minutes to cook. Or cook until batter is a nice dark golden brown. (Tip: You don't want the batter to crisp up too quickly or your fish won't cook on the inside.) You may have to flip the fish over to ensure it browns on both sides evenly. Once the batter is golden brown, lift fish out of the oil and place on a cookie rack to drain. This will keep the fish crispy, allowing the excess oil to drip off. Repeat with rest of fish.

Tarter sauce:
3/4 cup mayo
1 tsp chopped pickles
1 tsp chopped onion
malt vinegar to taste
salt to taste

For the tarter sauce, I definitely taste this as I go. I serve the fish with frozen french fries, but feel free to use whatever "chip" you like! The end result is a fish that is nice and flaky on the inside with a nice crunch to the batter. The batter has a little kick to it from the garlic powder and paprika. Don't really taste the beer that much, but I never could with restaurant fish & chips anyway.

Enjoy! And next time I post a recipe, I'll take pictures of the finished product.