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Fish & Chips

Spring Chicken
Spring Chicken Posts: 10,255
in EggHead Forum
Did you ever get one of those cravings that just won't go away? Yeah, me too. This one wasn't for Egg'd food, although I suppose I could have done it on the Egg. Instead, I wanted to duplicate as close as possible to authenic Fish & Chips.

The places I've tried here and different cities just didn't quite hit the mark with theirs, and some were no better than just fried fish, and sometimes even worse.

I read a lot of recipes, and there are a LOT of fish & chip recipes, all claiming superiority to all others. Some were way too simple while others were way too complex.

We don't eat a lot of home-fried food so I figured I had better try to master the art of 'frying' before I tried to make the perfect batter, the perfect chip and so on. So I got out the deep-fryer.

I just bought some frozen cod to start with, some russet potatoes and a box of Fish & Chips batter mix, and a huge bottle of canola oil to go in the deep fryer.

Here's the set-up in The Coop.

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Temperature climbing to 335°for the potato blanching then to 375° for the frying of both chips and fish.

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I did the potatoes using the two-step method that involved ice water, no batter, blanching and then re-frying first, then with the batter and frying once. We liked the batter version better.

The fish was better when fried just a bit longer to get the really crunchy outside but soft, not over cooked inside.

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Plated...

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Turned out pretty darn good but not exactly GREAT for my first attempt. But it also took four times as long to clean up as anything cooked on the Egg.

In conclusion, we will eat at Capt. D's next time I get the same craving, and the deep fryer will go back in the cabinet for a long, long time.

The Egg with a wok is much easier, faster and quicker to clean up anyway.

Spring "Just Because It's A Craving Doesn't Make It Good" Chicken
Spring Texas USA
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Comments

  • henapple
    henapple Posts: 16,025
    Nice...
    Green egg, dead animal and alcohol. The "Boro".. TN 
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  • Fred19Flintstone
    Fred19Flintstone Posts: 8,168
    Nice cook.  I know what you mean about the fryer.  We use ours very infrequently and usually only for egg rolls.  They're a crowd pleaser though.
    Flint, Michigan
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  • Skiddymarker
    Skiddymarker Posts: 8,522
    Great cook, love cod and chips - nice looking batter on the fish. Two stage frying for the fries is the secret, fry let sit for 5-10 minutes and then fry again. 

    Fred, my fryer sits on my outdoor cook station, for months with the oil in it, maybe because we don't get the deep freeze you do. 

    Frizzled onions are the most common use, maybe weekly. There is virtually no clean-up. The oil is drained/strained once in awhile, usually after chicken wings, they exude chicken fat.  
    Delta B.C. - Whiskey and steak, because no good story ever started with someone having a salad!
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  • JRWhitee
    JRWhitee Posts: 5,678
    Hey, how did you get my deep fryer. I thought it was in the pantry. 
                                                                
    _________________________________________________
    Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story!
    Large BGE 2006, Mini Max 2014, 36" Blackstone, Anova Sous Vide
    Green Man Group 
    Johns Creek, Georgia
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  • smokesniffer
    smokesniffer Posts: 2,016
    Skiddymarker said:
    Great cook, love cod and chips - nice looking batter on the fish. Two stage frying for the fries is the secret, fry let sit for 5-10 minutes and then fry again. 

    Fred, my fryer sits on my outdoor cook station, for months with the oil in it, maybe because we don't get the deep freeze you do. 

    Frizzled onions are the most common use, maybe weekly. There is virtually no clean-up. The oil is drained/strained once in awhile, usually after chicken wings, they exude chicken fat.  
    Hey Skiddy, how long do you fry them the second time. Wanna try that for sure. Thanks
    Large, small, and a mini
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  • Skiddymarker
    Skiddymarker Posts: 8,522
    edited February 2013
    @smokesniffer, depends on how big the fries are, but using our PC "fry press" which makes about 3/8" fries, the first dip is for about 5-7 minutes with a starting temp of 375F, using Russet spuds that have de-starched in water for a couple of hours, rinsed. I toss out the little slivers, they cook too fast and spuds are fairly cheap.
    I use my old gasser as a warming oven, temp <200F, after 7 minutes, dump the fries (or if making only one batch, I just put the whole fryer basket into the gasser on the cool side), reset the temp for 350 on the fryer, wait maybe 5-10 minutes for it to regain heat. The rest is what does it, who would have thought taters need to rest. The second dip is anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes, like Stephen King said in "IT", they all float down here, when they float and the colour is right for you, pull, salt and serve. Saw this on an episode of America's Test Kitchen. 
    Delta B.C. - Whiskey and steak, because no good story ever started with someone having a salad!
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  • Little Steven
    Little Steven Posts: 28,817

    SS and Skiddy,

    I bought one of those T-Fal actifry things and it honestly produces the best fries I've had. One kilo of fries with a tablespoon of oil. The little mini potatoes cut in half are the absolute bomb. The McCain fries don't even need oil.

    Steve 

    Caledon, ON

     

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  • Charlie tuna
    Charlie tuna Posts: 2,191
    I use a pressure frier and buy "seasoned fries", takes four minutes to cook a two pound package of fries...  Three minutes, for onion rings...............
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  • Charlie tuna
    Charlie tuna Posts: 2,191

    This is the results of broasted products:

    Chicken

    [img]http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo112/2728charlietuna/BroastedChickenNight006_zps3a9cbb92.jpg[/img]

    Seasoned Fries:

    [img]http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo112/2728charlietuna/BroastedChickenNight007_zps3ba3da67.jpg[/img

    Onion rings:

    ][img]http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo112/2728charlietuna/BroastedChickenNight009_zps4b9b2ac6.jpg[/img] 

     

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  • smokesniffer
    smokesniffer Posts: 2,016
    @ Skiddy
    @ LS
    Thanks, we have a deep fryer already. I am interested in letting the fries rest and them re-doing again. Will try this soon, thanks again.
    :-c
    Large, small, and a mini
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  • Botch
    Botch Posts: 15,463
    Charlie Tuna, what "pressure fryer" do you have?  I remember loving "broasted" chicken when I was a kid, but didn't know such things were even around anymore.  
    _____________

    Remember when teachers used to say 'You won't have a calculator everywhere you go'?  Well, we showed them.


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  • Charlie tuna
    Charlie tuna Posts: 2,191

    Sniffer,

    I have a 1 1/2 gallon Broaster.  It's original design was for pressure frying chicken and was the start of KFC.  The original Broasters cooked at a 26 psi operating pressure.  This, combined with maintaining the oil at 375 degrees, cooks the chicken  in it's own juices.  The oil temperature seals the chicken, and the pressure causes the chicken to cook very fast!  For some safety reasons the pressure was reduced to 13 psi, this cvaused the cooking time to double, but still turned out great chicken.  Broaster is a copyright name, and they have a recipe system that provides consistant product every time!!  People used to travel many miles to buy this stuff.  Many deli's use them today for their fried chicken.  Hospitals use them for patients who can't eat fried foods -- the oil does not get "into" the food like a standard frier..

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  • Eggcelsior
    Eggcelsior Posts: 14,414
    edited February 2013
    Charlie tuna said:

    Sniffer,

    I have a 1 1/2 gallon Broaster.  It's original design was for pressure frying chicken and was the start of KFC.  The original Broasters cooked at a 26 psi operating pressure.  This, combined with maintaining the oil at 375 degrees, cooks the chicken  in it's own juices.  The oil temperature seals the chicken, and the pressure causes the chicken to cook very fast!  For some safety reasons the pressure was reduced to 13 psi, this cvaused the cooking time to double, but still turned out great chicken.  Broaster is a copyright name, and they have a recipe system that provides consistant product every time!!  People used to travel many miles to buy this stuff.  Many deli's use them today for their fried chicken.  Hospitals use them for patients who can't eat fried foods -- the oil does not get "into" the food like a standard frier..

    Awesome Mr. Tuna! I saw a show once where the dude fried his chicken in a pressure fryer that reduced cooking time by 25 or 30%. I didn't think that there would be a consumer application for something like that. Based on those pots, you must have quite the "outdoor kitchen"!
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  • Charlie tuna
    Charlie tuna Posts: 2,191
    This Broaster will cook twelve standard sized chicken breasts in eight minutes -- it ALWAYS turns out the same product ---excellent !!  Five pounds of chicken wings - eight minutes... I was lucky enough to have a friend who was a distributor, the unit is expensive, but the brine and coatings are cheap.  I have two units, one at home and the other is on a trailer with it's own generator for tailgating..  The general public eats a lot of pressure fried chicken, they just don't know it because it is cooked in other manufactured cookers.  Just lately i started using the Broasted brine on my spatchcocked chickens --  can't eat enough of it !!  What a difference!!! 
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  • Eggcelsior
    Eggcelsior Posts: 14,414
    Nice. I found what looks like the same unit on ebay for 2.5K. Can you post the brine recipe?
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  • Charlie tuna
    Charlie tuna Posts: 2,191

    Thats a very good price -- the two i have cost about $5600.(New) , they come in different sizes.  Someone told me they cost $11,200. now??? 

    The brine is a Broaster product.  You would have to buy from a distributor.  It cost me about $38. for a 50 pound box.  Instructions call for adding four ounces of "chickite"(brine) to a gallon of water, soak the chicken for twelve hours.  It is a basic salt solution, but someone told me it has yeast in it???  Now, i am not a "brine" user, so i can't compare the Broaster brine with others??  But i will tell you --flat out -- this method makes a major difference it grilled chicken.  I will be spatchcocking my seventh "test" chicken this afternoon.  Berfore i became an Egghead, in my gasser days, we used to eat at a place before baseball games called "Kitchen Chicken".  It was a chain in Florida.  They served grilled chicken and sides -- that was it!  And i noticed the chickens were soaked in a brine before being placed on the grill???  And thebrine looked like "my' chickite???  So i started many years ago trying this on my gasser!  But just a few months ago i coupled it with the egg's spatchcocked chicken.  BINGO

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