Fish n chips

Fish n chips is one of my favorite meals. I guess I'm not sure exactly what it is that drives me to enjoy this dish so much. Perhaps it's the lightness. The recipe that we use for fish n chips is taken from Kitchen Sense by Mitchell Davis (ISBN: 1400049067).

	Fish n chips starts off with making the batter. It's a combination of flour, eggs, baking powder, baking soda, salt, pepper, and beer. Then it hangs out on the counter for an hour to do it's thing, whatever it's thing is.
	When it's about time for the batter to be done, the prep work begins. We like to use cod, the traditional fish n chips fish. Cod has nice big bones in the filet so at least they are relatively easy to remove.
	While I was boning the fish -- why is it not deboning when you are removing bones? I suppose you cannot put bones into something... -- J was peeling the potatoes. We typically use yukon golds for our chips but they all looked bad at the market. Instead, we used white potatoes. Then you cut em up like so. Optimal fry shape. Don't wash em after cutting. You want all that lovely starch on em. Don't ask me why. I just follow directions.
We always get too much fish so I took the filet we bought and cut half to save for later. Then I cut up the remaining half into suitable sizes. I did learn later that these were actually a little too big. Too big makes the batter soggy when you finish frying. And soggy fish n chips are a real bummer.
	We always fry the chips first since we fry them twice and also because the fish is best eaten immediately. I use one of those big Chinese frying things to keep all the fries orderly.
While the fries are frying (until the tips start to brown), I make tartar sauce. Mayonnaise, relish, and a little lemon juice.
	Chips draining. Very exciting.
When it's time to fry up the fish, first I cover the fish with cornstarch, then dip them into the batter. Then into the 370 degree oil in the wok they go!
	The fish fry for 4-5 minutes on one side and then two minutes on the other or until they get a nice golden color.
	Here are the fishies all fried up and happy.
	After the fries are done with their second fry, I toss them all into a bowl lined with a paper towel to drain some oil, pull out the paper towel, add fleur de sel, toss, and serve.

Oh yeah, and then I made some banana bread.