How to make the ultimate fish and chips
One of Australia’s hottest young chefs has the secret to the perfect fish and chips. Here’s how to shop for and cook the very best fish and chips at home in time for the Australia Day weekend.
Eating Out
Don't miss out on the headlines from Eating Out. Followed categories will be added to My News.
There’s cricket on the radio, tennis on the telly and fish and chips in your belly. It must be summer.
Fish and chips is the ultimate in egalitarian eating, as at home enjoyed on the beach while eyeballing seagulls as it is served up in some of the best restaurants in the land.
Because when the chips are golden, the batter crunchy and the fish tender and flaky, there are few foods better matched to a warm summer’s night.
But not all fish and chips are created equal.
Josh Niland is one of Australia’s hottest young chefs. Since opening Saint Peter in Sydney in 2016, he has single-handedly changed what it means to eat fish in Australia today.
Pioneering a true fin-to-gill approach to seafood at his restaurant and fish butchery down the road, Niland is on a mission to make eating fish as pleasurable – and, importantly, as sustainable – as possible.
“I want to remove hurdles and confrontations in our experiences with fish, so we can have better experiences with them. It’s expensive to buy fish. But there needs to be more conversation around how we’ve normalised putting 50 per cent of the fish in the bin. This next decade it’s more important than ever that it gets acted upon,” he says.
Niland, who will be in Melbourne in March as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, says he wants to change not only how chefs think about fish and seafood, but to provide real solutions for the home cook too.
“Fish and chips is possibly the most famous fish dish of them all,” he writes in The Whole Fish Cookbook.
“This is my interpretation of the simple yet challenging household favourite.”
Spoiler alert: the following advice will not save you time. It’s unlikely to save you money and it might cause you to slave away in a hot kitchen.
Undeterred? Read on and you’ll be given the secret to the perfect, ultimate fish and chips.
GO FISH
“The funny thing with fish and chips for many Australians is that we have this deep affinity with flat head, and to me, it’s probably scandalous, but I don’t love flat head in batter. I think flat head crumbed is amazing, but there’s something about the insulation of batter that softens up the flesh too much,” he says.
At the Fish Butchery, Niland uses pink ling, but also says yellow-eye mullet, haddock and gurnard are great battered and fried.
“If you go really crazy and spend a lot of money, then bar cod is amazing fish to put in batter. But that will cost a fortune,” he says.
Teraglin is another species he suggests seeking out as an alternative to mulloway, as it’s currently in good supply.
“The nice thing about it is its very sweet flesh and the skin is quite fine which means you can leave it on when you batter the fish. Any time you can do that you can articulate the flavour of the fillet, rather than just having a generic white protein that could be anything.”
CUT ABOVE
When preparing fillets for deep frying, if you’re using a larger fish species with a dense muscle structure, such as cod or ling, Niland says you don’t want to cut the fish as you would a fillet for pan frying.
He suggests leaving the skin on and cutting through it on a steep angle, so you end up with round medallions instead of long fillets.
“The muscle fibres are shortened by cutting at that severe angle, and that way the heat goes through it quicker, so it’s a faster cooking process,” he says. “Once the batter is caramelised and crunchy and brown the fish is ready.”
BATTER UP
“Most beer batters are yummy and crunchy, but they’re crunchy only for a short period of time,” Niland says. “The thing I love about Heston’s batter is that it all makes sense. I’ve done a pimped Australian version that will be familiar – people will smell it and they’ll get the VB vibes off the nose, then the colouring slightly more tan than people have eaten before. To me, it brings a whole lot of flavour that might not’ve been there with the (usual) batter.”
Learnt while Niland did a stint of stagiare (unpaid) shifts at The Fat Duck, Blumenthal’s batter recipe adds vodka as well as beer to rice flour mixed with self-raising and a touch of honey.
“(Heston) explained the higher percentage of alcohol burns off faster. If you’re able to evaporate the booze out faster, you end up with a crisper finish. When you substitute plain flour with a lighter starch like rice flour, you end up with something less like a pluto pup and more like a fine tempura batter. The honey brings caramelising to the batter.”
Niland says the best thing about this batter is its crunch.
“We’ve done tests at the Fish Butchery and the batter is still crisp a couple of hours later, it doesn’t go limp or soft.”
For frying, he suggests a neutral oil, such as cottonseed or sunflower.
“Once you’ve finished cooking, let it completely cool down and then pass it through a Chux cloth, bottle it up and use it next time. Small batch of fish and chips for a family, you could use the oil three or four times.”
YOU SAY POTATO
“The thing about the potato is you need one to taste really yummy, which often gets overlooked. I think it’s important to leave the skin on so you can taste the potato rather than it being this neutral finger that comes out of the fryer,” Niland says.
He suggests such varieties as sebago, russet or desiree as “they have a good amount of moisture but are quite creamy”.
Niland’s ultimate chip is the culmination of a multistage, multi-day process that he assures is worth the time and effort.
First, scrub the potato, cut the chips and rinse until the water runs clear. Steam over boiling water until they are only just holding their form. Remove and carefully transfer to a wire rack. Once cool leave to dry in the freezer, uncovered, overnight.
The next day, heat oil to 140C and fry in small batches for 5 minutes or until small bubbles form around the edge of the chips. “Once you have that crust take them out of the fryer, put them onto a cake wire and put into fridge. Let the fan of the fridge blow over them overnight, to help develop the crust and remove any excess moisture,” Niland says.
For the final fry, heat oil to 180C and cook the chips until they are golden brown.
“The first step is critical,” Niland says. “That’s where you make your chip as firm or soft as you desire. And if you take it too far in that first stage, you can always turn them into potato gems!”
GET SAUCY
Apart from a sprinkle of salt and a squeeze of lemon, good fish cooked as above needs nothing more to truly shine. But a touch of tartare is a happy accompaniment for those who like a little dunk to add to the crunch.
Niland’s version mixes 3 diced large French shallots, 1 tbsp rinsed finely chopped salted capers, 60g coarsely chopped cornichons and 2 tbsp finely sliced flat leaf parsley into 375g natural yoghurt.
STORAGE SOLUTIONS
When buying fish, whether from a fishmonger or the supermarket, Niland says the best thing to do when you get home is to take it out of its packaging, put it onto a cake rack, uncovered, in the fridge. Leave for at least two hours to dry out.
“Drying the skin, removing the moisture, will give you a better-tasting fish,” he says.
If buying fish at the supermarket, avoid those that have condensation on the plastic wrapper, and when buying at the market, always look at the clarity of the eyes and avoid those that are cloudy.
ADVANCED AUSTRALIAN FARE
Want to take your battered fish game to the next level? Niland says there’s a heap of underused bits that can be used, including the cheeks and throat.
“The exterior cheek of a fish is an amazing part of the fish to put into batter. Often at the market you’ll see buckets of heads that don’t get put to good use at all. It wouldn’t take much work to ask the monger to get the knife into the head and scoop the cheeks out for you,” he says. “And you’ll enjoy something more like popcorn chicken but with fish.”
He also suggests asking the fishmonger for fish collars or wings, which also work well deep fried.
“All those dark bits of meat around the head, the collars, the wings, that’s another good part of the fish that’s good for deep frying. It’s like the chicken thigh of the fish, it’s the part that’s done more work, so will have more flavour.”
RECIPE: FISH & CHIPS
Note: if you want to cook the chips in this way, this recipe needs to be started four days ahead.
SERVES 4
INGREDIENTS
3kg potatoes, such as sebago, king edward or russet burbank, skin on
Salt
5 litres cottonseed or sunflower oil, for deep-frying
4 skinless, boneless butterflied yellow-eye mullet, ling, haddock or pollock fillets, head and tail on
215g self-raising flour
400g rice flour, plus extra for dusting
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp honey
345ml vodka (37% proof)
550ml beer
METHOD
For the potato chips, cut the potatoes into index finger width and length batons, then soak in cold water overnight.
The next day, drain the chips and transfer them to a large, heavy-based stock pot. Cover with cold water and season with salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 10 minutes, or until the potatoes are moments from collapsing but still holding their form. Remove the potatoes carefully and transfer to wire racks. Leave to dry in the freezer overnight, uncovered.
The next day, heat the oil for deep-frying in a deep-fryer or large saucepan until it reaches a temperature of 140C. Deep-fry the chips for 5 minutes, or until a blistered skin on the chip has fully formed. Drain and leave to cool, then return to the freezer to dry on a wire rack overnight.
The next day, prepare the fish by slicing even thick medallions from the fillet and setting on paper towel in readiness toflour and batter.
For the batter, whisk the flours and baking powder together in a large bowl. Mix the honey and vodka together well, then pourinto the flour mix. Add the beer and whisk together. Chill until needed.
Heat the frying oil in the saucepan to 180C and fry the parcooked chips again until very crisp and golden, about 5–6 minutes. Drain well and season with salt.
Dust the fish lightly in a little rice flour first, then coat in the batter and carefully lower into the hot oil. Deep-fryfor 2 minutes, or until very crisp. You may need to turn the fish over midway through for even colouring. Remove and drainon a wire rack set in a tray.
Serve the fish and chips immediately with your favourite condiments, a green salad and cold beer (or kombucha).
This is an edited extract from The Whole Fish Cookbook by Josh Niland, published by Hardie Grant Books, RRP $55. Photographer: © Rob Palmer 2019
READ MORE:
TOP 20 THINGS TO EAT AT THE AUS OPEN
WHERE TO EAT AND DRINK IN BRUNSWICK
SOUTH YARRA BISTRO SERVING ULTIMATE DUCK
Josh Niland will be appearing at Shed X Talks as part of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in March. Held at the Queen Victoria Market over both weekends of the festival.
Shed X is a free event featuring talks and demonstrations by some of the world’s leading chefs including Ed Verner (Pasture, New Zealand), Eyal Shani (Miznon, Israel), Helen Goh (Ottolenghi, UK) and Risi Naleendra (Cloudstreet, Singapore).
MFWF is on March 19-29, for the full program and line up: MFWF.com.au