chip shop batter recipe?

davlacey

anyone work in a takeaway that can help me out with a batter recipe? ive tried loads of the net but there never the same. i know some buy it in and just add water but there is still some that make there own any chipshops ive asked either dont know or wont tell me.

vicwatson

Plain flour, salt, ice cold sparkling water, mix to thick consistency. Job done

monkeynuz

Personally I don't bother with the sparkling water, some people say it works others swear by using beer, I prefer plain water.

Getting the consistency right is more important, bit thicker than double cream and not as thick as custard, good hot fat and don't forget to dip the fish in plain flour before dunking in the batter, then fry.

Chewabacca

Some places use a yeast batter. I usually just make beer batter, takes 30 seconds. Add enough beer to make it thick but not pastey. Cook around 180c.

Lovely Bloke

half and half normal flour and cornflour

The Hill Billy

I doubt that your bog standard chipper is using either sparkling water or beer to make their batter.

vibe666

I use 1/4 to 1/3 cornflour (sorry, i never measure anything), plus half a teaspoon of baking soda and water or beer.

as has been said, the real key is the thickness and a good coating of flour on the fish so it sticks properly.

if you get the batter too thin there will be too much water in it which will evaporate (violently) and loosen too much of what batter is there and not enough of it will stick to the fish, too thick and it won't fluff up properly as it cooks.

if you want to do some testing to see if you have it right, make some onion rings first (rinse in water and then flour them so you get good adhesion) and adjust the batter accordingly until they start coming out right. you'll feel a lot better about wasting an onion than you will about wasting a nice bit of fish.

and you'll have onion rings and even bad onion rings are still good.

monkeynuz

Have never used cornflour, not sure why it's needed?

Haven't heard of places using yeast either, would have thought the batter would change during a shift if had yeast in it.

My batter always comes out perfect like the best chip shops in England from my childhood.

Also lard/animal fat gives the best results!

BraziliaNZ

I just use flour, beer, and a bit of salt. If you get it right it's nicer than any chipper batter.

vibe666

monkeynuz wrote: »

Have never used cornflour, not sure why it's needed?

Haven't heard of places using yeast either, would have thought the batter would change during a shift if had yeast in it.

My batter always comes out perfect like the best chip shops in England from my childhood.

Also lard/animal fat gives the best results!

a decent bit of cornflour makes it crispier. also a good tip if you're dusting chicken wings (or anything else) and want them to go nice and extra crispy when you fry them.

i believe it's an old chinese trick for extra crispy batter.

The Hill Billy

As per the OP - does anyone know of a chipper recipe rather than those used for home cooking?

tHB

davlacey

thanks for all the replies im going to try a few out with onion rings i dont know how many fish ive ruined with dodgy recipes.the local chippy said he buys it in and just adds water. he uses a special cap that checks the thinkness its a small cup with a hole and if the thickness is right the cup should be empty in 60 seconds or that if not add more batter mix.heres what they use
http://www.middletonfoods.com/products/fish-a-chips-a-fast-food/29-fish-a-chips-a-fast-food-batter-mixes

vibe666

sweet holy jebus that's a lot of batter! :eek:

Animord

It is quite interesting that those batters mention that some are good for southern England tastes, some northern England and some appear made for the Scottish market.

It would be interesting to see them cooked and side by side to see the differences.

monkeynuz

The Hill Billy wrote: »

As per the OP - does anyone know of a chipper recipe rather than those used for home cooking?

tHB

Commercial uk chip shop recipe is as I stated earlier flour, salt and water. Anything thing else and it wouldn't last the 6 hour frying shift.

monkeynuz

vibe666 wrote: »

a decent bit of cornflour makes it crispier. also a good tip if you're dusting chicken wings (or anything else) and want them to go nice and extra crispy when you fry them.

i believe it's an old chinese trick for extra crispy batter.

Thanks for the clarification, I still can't see the point though, because when I batter fish and fry it with my recipe there is one almighty crunch from the batter and it is just like I used to be able to get from chip shops in England 30 years ago or even better than that.

Dizzyblonde

I suspect that a lot of the flavour in chip shop batter comes from what they fry it in. Don't a lot of them use lard?

monkeynuz

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

I suspect that a lot of the flavour in chip shop batter comes from what they fry it in. Don't a lot of them use lard?

Referring back to my earlier post about animal fat.

Although good batter and crisp and dry vegetable fat will do the trick.

Kali_Kalika

Hope this is related enough that its ok I post here

I recently tried my hand at home made "chipper fish" as the OH called it - wonderful tasting batter - but not much of it stuck to the fish (we were happy enough to just collect it out of the basket and sorta include it with a bite of fish) - it looked a mess but was seriously tasty! Now if I could get it to stick it would be perfect! Any suggestions of what I did wrong? Was fresh fish from Tesco (planned at the last minute so couldn't get anything better) and I dusted it with a bit of salt and flour (mixed together, as per the recipe) then into the batter then into the fryer - the consistency seemed ok according to what the recipe said but no joy with it sticking for me.

monkeynuz

Kali_Kalika wrote: »

Hope this is related enough that its ok I post here

I recently tried my hand at home made "chipper fish" as the OH called it - wonderful tasting batter - but not much of it stuck to the fish (we were happy enough to just collect it out of the basket and sorta include it with a bite of fish) - it looked a mess but was seriously tasty! Now if I could get it to stick it would be perfect! Any suggestions of what I did wrong? Was fresh fish from Tesco (planned at the last minute so couldn't get anything better) and I dusted it with a bit of salt and flour (mixed together, as per the recipe) then into the batter then into the fryer - the consistency seemed ok according to what the recipe said but no joy with it sticking for me.

Did you knock off the excess flour?

Did you perhaps have the oil too hot?

Not entirely sure what went wrong, I haven't come across this problem before as such.

Was the consistency similar to thick double cream?

I am sure you probably didn't do anything wrong just had pure bad luck, you might find it works perfectly next time you try.

All the best with it.