Fish Fry: A good time with friends

I wasn’t the one to pull this one off, I just helped. My good friend Alex P led it, with me just assisting as needed and prepping the aforementioned beans as a side dish. That said, we agreed afterwards the results were phenomenal, and he was OK with me posting it. And, thus, a post on beer-battered pollock, because this affordable, everyday dish can be a real marvel with some effort.

This session was done with pollack, and the recipe used is a modified version of an Alton Brown recipe off the Food Network website. I didn’t have any Old Bay seasoning, so Alex looked up the ingredients and pulled some of my spices to cover for it, and the results were fantastic. He also was able to do the deep frying in my cast iron pan with a fork and spatula, but we both agreed afterwards a deep pot would have probably been easier. Also, the beer we used was a standard Yuengling, but I suppose any would work (just not crap). Anyway, on to the recipe.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs white fish (Cod, pollock, flounder)

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 dash tabasco, or red pepper

2 bay leaves, crumbled

a dash of cinnamon

a pinch of black pepper

a pinch of crushed red pepper

a dash of dried mustard

cornstarch

1 bottle beer

At least 3 cups canola oil

Instructions

Turn the oven on warm (lowest setting), and have a cookie sheet lined with paper towels in it ready to receive the fish.

Fill about 1-2 inches of oil in a large pot, and warm it up on medium-high heat on the stove. Then, mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices together in a large mixing bowl. After they’re all mixed, add the beer, and beat it until smooth. Refrigerate this mixture for 15-20 minutes.

Cut the fish into whatever size chunks you wish, but they should be no more than an inch thick. To fry, dip the fish first in a small bowl with cornstarch, then in the batter, and then into the pan, getting a coating on all sides in each dip. In the pan, turn fish with a fork, tongs, and/or spatula, frying all sides until golden brown. Oil temperature can be determined to be correct by the fact that many bubbles come up around the fish. Each fish will take ~2 minutes to fry, and can be removed to the sheet in the oven until the process is complete.

After you’re done, go ahead and eat! This works great with any sort of potatoes or coleslaw, but we had it with beans and a salad and that was good as well