MEXICAN FISH & CHIPS
~ Fried Fish Tacos with Hand-Torn Blue Masa Chips ~
With salsa ketchup, chipotle sour cream, guacamole
Serves 4
Ingredients
For the tortilla wraps and hand-torn blue masa chips
500g (blue) masa harina (masa flour can be purchased online from Mexican stockists)
600ml tepid water
1 teaspoon sea salt
For the guacamole
3 large ripe avocados
Juice 2 limes
½ small red onion, finely diced
Small handful coriander, chopped
2 green birdseye chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
Black pepper and sea salt
For the salsa ketchup
6 vine tomatoes, quartered and deseeded
1/2 cup of your favourite ketchup
2 green birdseye chillies
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled
½ red onion, finely diced
2 tbsp coriander, roughly chopped
Juice 1 lime
1/2 teaspoon of smoked paprika
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
Teaspoon of honey
Dash of olive oil
For the chipotle sour cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, finely chopped
Pinch of sea salt
Small handful chives, chopped
For the fish tacos
4 x tilapia fillets
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup good Mexican light beer (for beer batter – our favourite is Dos Equis)
3 cups of vegetable oil
1 x chopped radish
Directions
To make the tortilla wraps, mix the masa harina and the salt together in a mixing bowl. Pour in the water and stir to combine. Knead the dough for several minutes in the bowl. The dough is ready when it’s smooth, but no longer sticky, and easily forms a ball in your hand. Cover the bowl with a towel and rest for 30 minutes. Form a ball roughly the size of a ping-pong ball, then using a tortilla press, shape the dough to make approx. 6inch tortillas (around 2mm thick). If you don’t have a press, you can also use a rolling pin with grease proof paper. Separate the tortillas in two, keep half for the chips and the other half for the wraps. Using a flat cast iron griddle, over a medium heat, cook half of the tortillas for 1 to 2 minutes on each side. Take the other half and tear roughly into chip sized sections. Deep fry in sunflower oil for 3 minutes.
To make the guacamole, halve and stone the avocados, then spoon the flesh into a bowl. Pour over the lime juice and add a pinch of sea salt, then crush with a potato masher until puréed but still a little chunky. Add the onion, coriander, chillies and black pepper. Stir through and set aside.
For the salsa ketchup, place the tomatoes, cut-side up, in a baking tray along with the chillies and garlic, salt, pepper and a dash of olive oil. Roast in the oven at 180 degrees for 20-25mins. When done, peel the garlic and add to a food processor, then peel, deseed and stem the chillies. Add to the food processor along with the cumin, smoked paprika, honey, tomatoes, ketchup, onion, coriander, and lime juice. Season with black pepper, pulse until chunky.
For the chipotle sour cream, stir together sour cream, finely chopped chipotle pepper, chives and sea salt.
For the fish tacos, Cut the fish into 1 1/2-inch chunks.
To make the batter, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk in enough beer, about 1 to 1 1/2 cups, until the mixture is the consistency of pancake batter.
Heat the oil in a deep skillet over medium heat to 360 degrees F.
When the oil is hot, working in batches, dip the fish pieces into the batter and carefully add them to the hot oil. Cook the fish until golden brown on both sides and the fish is cooked through, about 4 to 6 minutes total. Remove from the pan and drain on to a sheet tray lined with paper towels.
Warm tacos in the microwave or oven for around 30 seconds.
Divide the fish between your warm tacos. Top with chopped radishes and a drizzle of the chipotle sour cream and salsa ketchup. Serve with the masa chips, guacamole and the remaining salsa ketchup and chipotle sour cream. Enjoy!
www.craftandharbour.com
How do you eat yours? Brits reveal their favourite fish ‘n’ chip trimmings!
As a nation, we spend £1.2bn* on fish and chips every year, making our way through 382 million portions.
This week (June 2) marks the annual celebration of the humble fish and chips, and in honour Wren Kitchens have surveyed Brits up and down the country to discover the ultimate combination.
As a nation, the findings reveal the classic salt (37%) and vinegar (41%) is the perfect start to the dish; with a generous helping of mushy peas (28%), a dollop of tomato ketchup (25%) and a side of bread and butter (23%). Of course, there was no debate between chunky (19%) or thin (4%) chips!
With 10,500 fish and chip shops up and down the country, the perfect accompaniments to our national dish vary from the weird to the wonderful.
Although it’s a clear favourite by all, the study suggests Wales are the biggest fans of a vinegar soaked fish and chip with the South East accustomed to a salty supper.
While legend would have you believe Northerners can’t sit down to eat without a tankard of gravy, Yorkshire is in fact the curry sauce capital of the UK, with a “cuppa” being the worthy winner for those in the North East and mushy peas for the North West.
Southerners on the other hand are king of the condiments, with Londoners sticking to ketchup and those in the South West partial to a side of tartar.
But it’s the Scots that have really made the fish and chip dinner their own, with a side that no-one but them seems to have knowledge of. Scotland is the chippy sauce capital of the UK with 1 in 5 Edinburgh respondents saying it is the perfect pairing (washed down with an Irn-Bru of course!).
Accompaniment Capitals
| Region | Item | % |
| East Anglia | Chunky Chips | 21 |
| East Midlands | Mayonnaise | 8 |
| London | Ketchup | 33 |
| North East | Tea | 20 |
| North West | Mushy Peas | 44 |
| Northern Ireland | Bread and Butter | 31 |
| Scotland | Brown sauce | 10 |
| South East | Salt | 45 |
| South West | Tartar sauce | 18 |
| Wales | Vinegar | 49 |
| West Midlands | Battered Sausage | 15 |
| Yorkshire & Humber | Curry sauce | 28 |
Capitals calculated by taking each accompaniment and finding the region most likely to enjoy this item (based on highest % from regional respondent samples)
Favourite Accompaniments
| Number | Item | % |
| 1 | Vinegar | 41% |
| 2 | Salt | 37% |
| 3 | Mushy peas | 28% |
| 4 | Ketchup | 25% |
| 5 | Bread and butter | 23% |
| 6 | Chunky chips | 19% |
| 7 | Curry sauce | 17% |
| 8 | Tartar sauce | 16% |
| 9 | Battered Sausage | 12% |
| 10 | Tea | 12% |
| 11 | Mayonnaise | 10% |
| 12 | Lemon | 9% |
| 13 | Garden peas | 9% |
| 14 | Fizzy Pop | 8% |
| 15 | Brown Sauce | 7% |
| 16 | Beans | 7% |
| 17 | Pickled onions | 7% |
| 18 | Scraps (bits/scrumps) | 7% |
| 19 | Gravy | 7% |
| 20 | Chippy sauce | 6% |
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Top 20 favourites calculated from overall sample size (2,000 UK respondents) when asked about their favourite side dishes to accompany fish and chips)
www.wrenkitchens.com
Pan seared Cromars scallops with black pudding and apple puree from award-winning fish and chip shop Cromars in St Andrews.
www.cromars.co.uk
INGREDIENTS – to serve 3
– 12 scallops
– peeled and sliced
3 Bramley apples, slice and cored
50ml lemon juice
– 20g butter
– Juice of 1 lemon
– 9 slices black pudding
– olive oil for frying
Lemon to garnish
- To make the apple puree, sweat the apple with the lemon juice until soft, then puree.
- Open scallops and clean.
- Peel and slice the black pudding and sauté.
- Then sauté the scallops on one side and turn when coloured, add a knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice, baste and drain on a cloth.
- To serve: Place a small amount of apple puree on top of the black pudding, then top with a scallop, place 3 scallops on the plate. Serve with chips!
Willie Little’s halibut and straw chips
SERVES 4-6
Sea salt for dusting
800g Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into very fine matchsticks about 0.5cm thick
heat 6-8 cm of sunflower oil in a sturdy pan and bring to deep frying temperature- test with one piece of potato – when it is floating and goes dark brown the temperature will have reached 180 degrees C and you are ready to begin frying. Pat the potato strips with kitchen paper and cook in batches. Drain on paper and sprinkle with sea salt – serve with the fish. Or you can use a deep fat fryer.
BATTER RECIPE FOR HALIBUT
100g self-raising flour
1 tsp lemon pepper
1/2 teaspoons garlic granules
Good pinch dried dill
Cracked black pepper
Good pinch of salt
100ml of water
4 large Halibut fillets
Coat fish fillets, which have been dried with kitchen paper, into the seasoned flour and deep fry until golden brown. Serve immediately with straw chips.
www.littlesrestaurant.co.uk