Recipes

Tom Aikens shares his secrets for the perfect fish and chips.

Serves 4

For the Batter

    300g high gluten bread flour
    1½ tsp salt
    60g cornflour
    15g sugar
    ¼ tsp white pepper
    500ml Heineken lager
    30g yeast

For the Tartare sauce

    10g English mustard
    Pinch freshly ground black pepper
    1 tsp salt
    4 egg yolks
    750ml vegetable oil
    2 tbsp water
    1½ tsp lemon juice
    3 tsp white wine vinegar
    75g chopped gherkins
    75g chopped capers
    10g chopped parsley
    75g chopped shallots

For the Thick cut chips

    Maris Piper potatoes, peeled
    Oil, for frying

Method

Batter: Place the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well. Mix the remaining ingredients and leave to stand for a good 10 minutes. Pour the liquid into the flour and whisk to a batter. It needs to be whisked very well to avoid any lumps. As this batter is a beer batter, it's best used after 15-20 minutes. If you don't want to use all beer, then mix half beer and half sparkling mineral water. This will help with the crispness of the batter.

Tartare sauce: whisk the mustard, salt, pepper and egg yolks in a bowl then slowly pour in the oil, whisking well. You will need to add a little water to the mayonnaise to stop it getting too thick and splitting. Then carefully whisk in the rest of the ingredients.

Chips: cut the potatoes into 1cm square batons the length of the potato so they are all the same size. Wash the starch off the potato with cold running water. Place into a pan of slightly salted cold water and bring to a rapid boil. Then chill them straight away in cold water to stop them cooking any further. Dry them off well and then plunge them into the hot oil at 140C for 2-3 minutes, then drain. Heat the oil back up to 180C. Then plunge them back into the oil till they are golden brown - approximately 3-5 minutes - then drain and season with sea salt.

To fry the fish, dust the fish with the flour then dip into the batter and fry at 180C until crisp and golden.