Fish and chips (and mushy peas)

Once in a while, why not?

A couple of things:

1. For traditional mushy peas, use marrowfat peas. They come dried.
2. The potatoes for the chips are best if floury rather than waxy
3. Don't balk at the idea of vinegar on chips. We use malt vinegar - this perfectly complements the chips whereas any other vinegar (such as wine vinegar) would be ghastly
4. You can use frozen fish for this but never keep the fish frozen for more than around 1 month

Serves: 3
Cost per person: 5 zl (a quid)

Ingredients:

- around 250g cod
- 3 large potatoes
- a few handfuls of marrowfat peas
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- a few tablespoons of plain flour
- 1 tablespoon of rice flour
- 25 ml beer
- salt
- pepper
- malt vinegar
- veg oil for deep frying

Let's get started on this!

1. Soak the peas overnight with 1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda

2. Drain, wash and cover in fresh water till about 2cm over the peas. Boil and simmer for around 15 minutes

3. Meanwhile, peel and chop up the potatoes into chips. Put in a pan so that the potatoes are covered by the water. Add 1 big pinch of salt

4. After around 10 minutes, the peas will have started to shed their skins. Remove as many skins as you can

5. Continue simmering till the liquid has reduced and the peas are mushy (around 30 minutes).

6. Grind in some black pepper and season with a pinch of salt. Set aside to reheat later

7. Dust the fish with flour

8. Combine the flours in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper and make a well

9. Add the beer

10. Whisk to form a liquid batter

11. Parboil the chips for 5 minutes (from when the water boils)

12. Drain

13. Heat up the oil to medium. Drain the potatoes. Add to the oil. Fry for around 8 minutes.

14. Drain in a sieve

15. Dip the fish in the batter will totally immersed. Pull out gently and drop straight into the same oil. Cook for around 7 minutes

16. Remove and rest on kitchen paper

17. Add a little butter to the peas and gently reheat, stirring in the butter

18. Heat up the oil to full blast. Refry the chips for around 2 minutes until golden.

19. Drain in a sieve with kitchen paper. Season with salt and malt vinegar

20. Plate up and enjoy!

Cost:

- fish: 10zl
- peas: 1 zl
- potatoes: 1 zl
- the rest: 3 zl

Total: 15 zl
Servers: 3
Per person: 5 zl