Ingredients
Serves 4I piece of fish per person (see notes)
1kg floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chips (see notes)
Batter
1 tsp cumin seeds
200g self-raising flour
½ tsp turmeric
350ml cold beer
Sea salt
Method
Smash up the cumin seeds in a pestle and mortar. Stop before it becomes a powder so there are still some visible cumin seeds.
Put the flour into a mixing bowl and stir in the ground spices and the turmeric. Pour in most of the beer and whisk gently.
Check the consistency; you want it to be the thickness of double cream. If it’s too thick, whisk in the rest of the beer.
Don’t worry too much about having little lumps in the batter, as they’ll just become nice crunchy bits when you start frying. Season with sea salt and put to one side.
Pour the oil into a deep saucepan - you want it to be about 10-12cm deep - and heat it to 180°C. If you don’t have a thermometer don't worry, just drop a piece of potato into the oil. When it floats to the surface and starts to sizzle, the oil will be at the right temperature so remove the potato from the pan.
Parboil your chips in salted boiling water for about 4 or 5 minutes until softened but still retaining their shape, then drain them in a colander and leave to steam completely dry. When all the moisture has disappeared, fry them in the oil that the fish were cooked in at 180ºC until golden and crisp. While the chips are frying, you can place the fish on a baking tray and put them in the oven for a few minutes at 180ºC to finish cooking. This way they will stay crisp while you finish off the chips. When they are done, drain them on kitchen paper, season with salt, and serve.
Notes:
Fish - Use firm white fish with very few bones. Rockling is ideal but a bit pricey. Dory, Blue Grenadier even Flake will work well too.
Potatoes - Use floury potatoes with a low moisture content; e.g. Russet Burbank, Spunta, King Edward, Bintje or Sebago.