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Craig's Beer Batter recipe and tips


kiwicraig

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I've been working on my beer batter for a while now and this is my go to recipe whenever I want to have a feed of home made fish and chips or batter fillets for fish tacos.

Credit where credit is due - the ingredients are largely based on the Beer Battered Prawns from Paul Mercurio's excellent book Cooking with Beer. As an aside if you like beer and you like eating I would highly recommend this book. However I have adjusted the quantities for a family sized collection of fillets and added my own notes into the method. If you take 2 flathead and cut each fillet into three long thin strips consisting of the belly, the shoulder and the tail this recipe will give you the perfect amount of batter to coat all 12 fish pieces. If you have a bigger group to feed it can easily be doubled or tripled as needed.

Also I like my batter super crispy - and there are two keys to achieving this.

1) Rice flour in the mix - it just does not turn out the same without it. Keep some in your pantry!

2) The batter mix has to be really cold and the oil quite hot when you start cooking. I've heard of people putting ice in the batter mix - I do not advocate this as the ice will melt and as you cook the batter will get runnier. My solution is an ice bath. Using two bowls that nest together, preferably metal. In the larger bowl you put some ice and cold water to about half way full, you then set the smaller bowl on top of that and make the batter in that. I will usually put the oil on to heat up, make the batter and then put both bowls in the fridge while I prepare the fillets. This gives the oil time to heat up properly and the batter time to chill down further.

Beer Batter:

1/3 cup of rice flour

1/3 cup of plain flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of black pepper

1/4 teaspoon of cumin (optional but I like it - especially when making fish tacos)

Approx 1/2 a beer - I usually use a pale ale because that is what I tend to drink.**

Oil for frying - I will usually use either Canola Oil or Sunflour Oil. Both are cheap in large quantities - which is a definite plus for deep frying. They are also cholesterol free, don't have a lot of flavor and have a high smoking temperature.

Mix the dry ingredients in the smaller of the bowls in the ice bath above. Slowly mix in pours of beer until you get a consistency that will evenly coat a dry finger when you dip it in the batter mix. If you get it to runny, just sprinkle in a little more rice flour and mix it in.

Once you are happy with the consistency drink the other half of the beer - frying is hot work.

Pat the fillets dry with a paper towel then in batches dip them in the batter mix and fry until golden brown. If you have a shallow pan you may need to turn them carefully with a pair of tongs half way through cooking. Dry them on paper towels with more paper towels over the top to keep them warm while you cook the remaining batches.

Simple and delicious.

** If you (god forbid) don't have any beer you can use water. I have a Soda Stream and I found that carbonated water makes a better substitute than still water.

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