Last updated on February 23, 2019 by Liza Hawkins
Disclosure: WORLDFOODS sent me three different Asian fusion sauces (of my choosing!) to use in my recipe, which has been guest posted over on Tales of Pigling Bland. I hope you enjoy Gill’s guest post over here (she’s soooo funny) – fish and chips are a favorite of mine! -Liza
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Hi, I’m Gill. I live in London and I blog at Tales of Pigling Bland where I share my baking and cooking triumphs and disasters. But what am I doing here on (a)Musing Foodie?
Well, one of the things that bloggers most often cite as a benefit of doing what we do is meeting new people and experiencing new flavours. Thanks to a challenge being run by WORLDFOODS sauces I have been paired up with (a)Musing Foodie Liza to bring you a guest post which takes a British classic – Fish, Chips and Mushy Peas – and turns it into a fresher, more globe-trotting dish.
Liza and I were both asked to look at the range of Asian fusion sauces, then take a favourite or traditional dish and switch it up a bit using their sauces. So, being a Londoner what else could I chose but Fish and Chips?!
It’s by no means the prettiest dish in the world, but let’s face it, that’s not what us Brits are known for. What we do well is good, hearty, belly-filling food.
Really you should only ever eat fish and chips on a freezing cold windswept beach whilst being dive-bombed by seagulls, but given that this is a sunnier version I might just let you off that bit of the experience. Enjoy, and don’t forget to pop over to Tales of Pigling Bland to see what Liza has made for her part of the challenge.
Cor Guvnor, it ain’t pretty but it’s good and tasty!
(no we don’t speak like that here really)
Delicious, crispy batter….
Fusion Fish and Chips
Ingredients
- 2 large fillets of white fish
- ½ bottle of WorldFoods Thai Turmeric and Lemon Grass marinade
- 1 large sweet potato (I used a white one but either kind will do)
- 6 baby aubergines (eggplant)
- 2 tbsp oil (vegetable or sunflower oil is fine)
- 500ml sunflower or vegetable oil (for frying)
[i]For the tempura batter:[/i]
- 50g cornflour
- 50g plain flour
- 5g baking powder
- 50g coconut flakes
- 100ml of very cold water
- 1 tsp ginger paste or a thumb sized piece of fresh ginger, grated finely (optional)
Instructions
For the tempura:
- Cut the fish into large chunks.
- Put them in a shallow dish (something like a Tupperware is ideal) and pour over the marinade.
- Shake the dish around and turn the fish so that it’s coated. Cover and put in the fridge for 20 mins or longer while you continue with your prep.
For the sweet potato:
- Preheat the oven to 200c.
- Peel the sweet potato and cut into chip sized pieces. If you’re being all chef-y I’d suggest about 1.5cm wide and 7cm long but to be honest I just chop them and see how they come.
- Place the chips on a baking tray, drizzle with the oil, season and shake around to coat the chips.
- Pop them in the oven to roast for 20 mins. If things are running over a bit with the rest of the meal they will be fine cooking for a while longer – up to a point they’ll just get more crispy.
NOTE: If you were being purist about fish and chips, these should be deep fried but I wanted this meal to have a lighter feel to it.
For the aubergine/eggplant:
- If you have a gas hob turn the hottest one on and carefully holding the green end of the aubergines one by one hold them over the flame turning until their skins are going black.
- Now add them to the chip tray and leave to roast. Again, they’ll just go nice and mushy.
- When serving you can either cut them in half and scrape out the smoky mushy flesh – much more fun, no?
For the fish:
- Put the flour, cornflour and baking powder into a medium sized bowl.
- Slowly add the ice-cold water mixing loosely with a fork as you go. Lumps are fine as this is basically a tempura batter. You want it to be roughly double-cream thickness.
- Stir through the ginger.
- Add the coconut flakes to the mixture and stir again.
- Heat up 500ml sunflower or vegetable oil in a medium sized pan. It needs to be wide enough and deep enough that a couple of chunks of fish have ample room to fry.
- When you think the the oil is hot drop a tiny bit of batter in. It should fizz away and turn golden brown quite quickly.
- A couple of pieces at a time, dip your fish chunks in the batter,making sure you get a good amount of coconut (you may want to help it on with a spoon – it’ll stick better once it starts frying) and drop them into the batter. Be careful, it’s might spit.
- After a few minutes they should start to turn golden brown. When it’s reached this stage take them out using a slotted spoon and place on some kitchen roll.
- Repeat until all the fish is done.
Notes
For the authentic experience serve your Thai fish, chips and mushy aubergine in newspaper and eat with fingers or a wooden chip fork. If you crave ketchup, either use Thai sweet chili sauce or put a few chili flakes in the with ketchup.
