MSNBC recently shared a tasty sounding recipe for beer-battered fish and chips. The recipe is taken from a new cookbook, “The Summer Shack Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Shore Food” by Jasper White. There’s even a video of it taken from the Today show. I’m hungry just looking at the ingredients. Yum.

Here’s the recipe for the batter:

INGREDIENTS
 

• About 6 cups peanut, canola, or other vegetable oil for deep-frying
• 1-1/2 pounds (or a little more) skinless fish fillets (large flounder and fluke, haddock, hake cod, Pollock, ocean perch, or tautog), cut into 4 thin (less than 3/4 inch) slices
• About 3 tablespoons Spiced Seafood Salt, or salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
• 1-cup all-purpose flour

 

For the batter:
 

• 1 cup of cornstarch
• One 12-ounce can beer or ale
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

 

DIRECTIONS
 

The batter can be made several hours in advance and refrigerated until ready to use.

1. To make the batter: Combine the flour, cornstarch, beer, egg, and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk well. The batter will be very light-slightly thinner than a regular pancake batter. Cover and refrigerate for at least 20 minutes, or up to 3 hours.
2. Line a baking sheet with paper towels. Heat 3 inches of oil to 375 F in a 4-to-5-quart Dutch oven over medium heat or in a deep fryer.
3. While the oil is heating, dry the fish fillets between several thicknesses of paper towels. Season with the spiced salt (or salt and pepper). Drop the fillets into the batter and toss with tongs to coat evenly.
4. When the oil is hot, lift the fillets one by one from the batter with the tongs, letting excess batter drip back into the bowl, and lower them into the oil, holding each fillet suspended in the oil for a few seconds to set the batter and prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pot. The temperature of the oil will drop when the fish is added, but you overheated the oil, to 375 F, to compensate for this. Don’t let the oil come back over 350 F once it recovers. Fry the fillets until deep golden brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer them to the paper towel-lined baking sheet with tongs. Serve the fish hot with the French Fries, coleslaw, tartar sauce, lemon wedges, and malt vinegar.

There’s also a recipe for “Boardwalk French Fries” to complete your meal. Sounds good to me. One of my favorite meals that my mother made was beer-battered fish and chips but, sadly, her recipe was lost when she passed away. As a result, I’m always looking for a close approximation of that comfort food from my childhood. This one looks pretty close, but who knows, I never really watched her make it. But there’s really only one way to find out. I guess I better get cooking.