Fish and Chips, and Friends

Our kitchen poured with music early this morning as Rikha, my (other) housemate, played aloud a number from an Indonesian female pop singer whom showed up to last year Grammy Awards red carpet. Honestly speaking, I can not stand her singing. But apparently Rikha kept listening to her the whole morning, one song after another. So I plugged my earphone in and tuned on some Iga Mawarni as I prepared to cook for brunch.

Anyway, for those of you who were wondering what have I done with my spiny dogfish, please be relieved for I am about to reveal to you now.

My fish and chips, and friends.

Fish and chips is a classic British take-away food popular since the mid of 18th century. The dish then invaded other continents. Original fish and chips recipe used salt and pepper seasoning, but I've made some spice improvement. Just for fun.

Not just spice, if you saw the dark and coated sprigs there that would be crispy herbs. Yes, I did fried herbs as well as other ingredients I found in the fridge; from rosemary, oregano, basil, parsley, onion, mozarella to chili. But I think parsley's the best companion of all, followed by onion rings.

Fish and Chips, and Friends

Ingredients:

• 750 ml oil for deep frying 
• 200 g self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoon garlic powder
• 2 tablespoon cumin powder
• 2 tablespoon black mustard powder
• 2 tablespoon chili powder
• 2 tablespoon turmeric powder
• 3 large potato (thinly sliced or wedge cut) 
• 250 ml beer (cold, or substitute with 250 ml cold water and 1 teaspoon baking powder)
• 1 egg white (optional)
• 300 g spiny dogfish fillet (substitute with other fish fillet, cut in fingers)
• 1 small onion (sliced)
• a handful of fresh Italian parsley leaves
• Tartar sauce, ¼ lemon and salt for serving

Preparation method:

1. Pre-heat the pan with oil.
2. Mix flour with salt, garlic, cumin, mustard, chili and turmeric powder (and baking powder, if using). Take a bit to slightly coat potato, onion and fish. Whisk in cold beer (or water) into the flour mix until well incorporated. Store it in fridge.
3. Meanwhile, deep fry potato until golden, lift and drain straightly into kitchen towel.
4. Take out the batter, whisk in egg white.
5. Dip in fish fillet and onion. Deep fry in several batch, don't get too crowd, until golden brown. Lift and drain. Repeat with parsley leaves.
6. Deep fry potato again until golden brown and crisp.
7. Sprinkle with salt and lemon juice, serve with tartar sauce.

Yield 3 serves.

Jamie (Oliver) noted that the only way to keep the batter crisp is to serve it straight away. Indeed, no matter how crisp the batter was, after one hour it'll become all mushy. So make a nice little batch and enjoy while still hot, with your friends and probably with some beers too. They'll love it, like my housemates do.