Tasteful Tuesday: Beer Battered Fish

In the South where I grew up, summer was all about seafood. As an adult, I developed a pretty nasty food allergy to shellfish – but I can still eat some fish. And despite the snarky comments from my husband, I happen to think that frying a good fish is one of the best ways to prepare it.

There are lots of ways to fry a fish. My mom would pan fry fish with a little bit of cornmeal breading in vegetable oil. My grandmother would deep fry fish in lard (how can anything cooked in lard not be good?). Me? After spending some time in the UK, I’ve come to enjoy a good beer battered fish – but I like to throw in some cornmeal for that southern flavor.

Beer Battered Fish

1/2 – 1 c. milk**

1 egg
1 cup flat beer
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal (use a good quality corn meal)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash Tabasco or hot sauce
vegetable oil
butter
fish fillets

** okay, a note about the milk. Some folks don’t like a real fishy fish taste. Some cooks in the South will rinse their fish and will rest the fish in milk or buttermilk for close to an hour before cooking. You may want to skip this step.

1, Beat the egg and add in the beer.
2, Slowly add in the flour, cornmeal, salt, pepper and tabasco sauce until the consistency is like pancake batter. You may need to add more or less flour depending on how much batter you like on your fish. My advice is to add the flour slowly and keep a small dish of flour handy.
3, Dip fish fillets into the batter, making sure to coat all sides.
4, Heat vegetable oil to very hot (a drop of water should sizzle in the pan). I like to add half vegetable oil and half butter. The reason for this is that frying only in butter will cause the fish to burn without being cooked through; frying only in vegetable oil will cook the fish but the outsides won’t be as brown and crispy as I like.
5, Drop fillets one at a time into oil and butter mixture.
6, Fry fish, turning only once, until both sides are a lovely brown.
7, Drain on paper towels.
8, Serve with a cold beer (I recommend a nice ale) and – of course – cole slaw.

Enjoy!