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That is good. That is really good. This is also something I've never done before. Yeah, I feel that's This is professional rage bait. There are a few things that America can proudly state that they invented. Democracy, eyeglasses, shoes probably. But we can rest easy knowing that we gave birth to Friday night fish fry. Inspired by the Christian kitchens of the Midwest spreading all the way to the Christian kitchens of Upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Friday night fish fry is a battered fried fish with fish battered fries with fries. Naysayers will say, "It's just fish and chips." which is an English invention. To them I
say, "It's not chips, it's fries." And if served on a Friday night, you can't tell me that it's not Friday night fish fry. Granted it is Monday at 12:05 p.m. But I'm going to show you how I make my ultimate Friday night fish fry. But what I don't know is that I'm going to be watched and dare I say judged by two acclaimed British chefs, Jack Croft and Will Murray of YouTube's own restaurant Fallow. Not only are they real British chefs, but also I'm a huge fan of theirs. So this is going to be emotionally devastating. All right Bobby, so we've traveled a long way for this. Let's see what you got. It's judgment time.
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Squarespace's brand new designer templates make it so easy to set up exactly what you need. To create one of your own, head to squarespace.com for a free trial and use code Babish for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Friday night fish fry. Tell you what, you get a smack in the mouth if you say a Friday night fish fry in the East End. I don't think I've ever had a good fish chips in America. He's trying to put us off on the back foot. Now, it's up to him to prove that he can actually do this. Now, fish and chips is normally comprised of four key elements. Fish, chips, tartar sauce, and mushy peas.
Sometimes, not always. Which sounds delicious, but what are they? Mushy peas are specifically marrowfat peas. These are extra mature. These are peas that read The New Yorker. Really don't like mushy peas. I'm not a massive fan, either. Normally, you'd soak this for 24 hours in water and baking soda, or bicarb, as our friends might refer to it. Then, once they're soaked, you cook them down. But, my intrepid culinary producer, Rachel, discovered if you just throw these in a pot with water and simmer them for 2 and 1/2 to 3 hours, just as good. And then, given that these are called marrowfat peas, I'm going to choose to see that as a dog whistle to use actual marrowfat.
Oh, nice. So, it's a surf and turf. Fun fact, and this is an especially appropriate episode to reveal this. I am famous for saying saucepan. It's one of my catchphrases, and people are like, "Why do you say that?" Picture a British person saying saucepan. Does that sound good? You lost me. I don't understand. We have our 200 g of marrowfat peas. Top that up with 500 something mil of water. Now, often mushy peas are just made with water. I'm just going to use chicken stock instead, add some more flavor, and a teaspoon of this hot nonsense. Then I've got my three little marrow bones here. I'm going to roast these at 425° F until they're starting to give up their fat and they got some nice browning.
Meanwhile, this guy's going on the stove. I'm going to bring it up to a simmer, hold it there for about 2 and 1/2 hours. And as soon as the marrow is done roasting, I'm going to scoop the fat in there to cook along with it. The one thing I will say that you probably won't know is that most mushy peas in the UK go a horrible color. You need to add a bit of green food coloring to actually make them look Yeah, and now the trend of using mushy peas even is even going down and down. Like most people are now doing like a crushed pea. Oh, a crushed minted pea. I thought that he was going to go down that angle. As is so often said, it's time to talk taters. So, for our fries and or chips, I'm going to go with Yukon Gold
potatoes. The Brits love their potatoes. They have all kinds of fun, cool varieties. Mostly named after women. Maris Piper, Desirée, Anya. There's another one, but I can't remember. And the closest equivalent we have to those potatoes is the Yukon Gold. It's definitely waxier than those potatoes, but it's going to give me a much creamier chip with an extra crunchy surface. I'm going to start by cutting these potatoes into pretty thick planks. They have no idea what I'm about to do. I'm about to blow their minds.
Now, I'm sure you've heard of Michelin starred chips. If you Google Michelin starred chips, there's a million different recipes, but I bet you haven't heard of Michelin star chips. Um, what on earth is he doing? What I'm going to do is I'm going to punch out a Michelin star from each of my potato planks. And I'm going to use a little Michelin star to hollow them out. So, then we're left with a bo boom. Michelin starred chips. See that, fellas? Oh my god. He's gone rogue. What's great about this method is that it's wasteful and that it's very high labor. So, let's keep going.
I'm just going to rinse and repeat until I have a whole bunch of a soon-to-be Michelin and currently Michelin starred chip. Oh, there's the double meaning. I don't know if you've gotten that yet, but there's actually a double meaning to this. I'm also worried that doing it like that, he's going to way underdo the amount of chip to fish ratio you need. You need a lot of chips. I would say like almost potentially triple the amount of chips. So, I suppose the problem thing for us whenever we're making chips, we're always thinking about the breaking of down of the potato. But he wants to hold these little
sort of Michelin star chips in the right shape. So, This is interesting. The first of the three cooks is a boil. I'm going to boil these guys for 15 to 20 minutes until they're almost falling apart. Then comes the first of two fries. I'm just using plain vegetable oil, into which I'm going to gently drop my potato pieces. Where I'm going to fry the chips for as long as I can, ideally up to 10 minutes, but 5 to 6 minutes will do. We don't want them turning brown, we just want them turning a very light blonde. The reason behind the double fry is that when you fry foods, they release a lot of moisture and if you do a low and slow fry first, all that moisture is going to start
evaporating coming to the surface making things soggy. Then, you hit it again with a second fry, which not only finishes up the crisping, it evaporates all that liquid. So, then you end up with nothing but crispy. So, now we're going to chill them until they're completely cooled before hitting the next fry. Now, it just wouldn't be fish and chips without fish, now would it? So, for the fish, I have these beautiful halibut loins. This is one of the thicker parts of the fillet. It's perfect for fish and chips because it's very mild flavor, it's very tender, it's very juicy, and the form factor is just right. Halibut is a fantastic fish. It can be so delicate and beautiful, but I think only if you cook it to like 40
42° C. Yes. And my worry would be halibut in a fish and chips here. The batter won't get crispy enough before the fish inside overcooks. And when halibut overcooks, it tastes like you're chewing on a cotton wool bud from a dentist. Or a dog toy. Yeah. Piece of cardboard. Now, I'm going to do a quick brine. Brining fish is perilous because you can make it firm, and you can make it very firm sometimes. So, for the dry brine, fish loves sugar. So, I'm going to do a one-to-one ratio pretty much of kosher salt to granulated sugar. And for an added bit of zing, I'm going to zest in the zest of not one, not two, but three citrate? Citrate.
This is going to bring a delightful lemon, lime, and orange flavor. I've seen some chefs do this. I don't know which ones. Absolutely great chefs. Yeah. Amazing recipes. It's going to bring a lovely tropical undernote to the fish, which There's one thing that I know about British food, it's that it's highly tropical. So, I'm just going to mix that zest in there. I'm going to put these guys on a rack because the dry brine is going to draw out a bunch of moisture, and I don't want them swimming in their own moisture. I want it to drip away.
Very light sprinkle. Don't want to overdo this because I'm worried I'm going to overdo it. So, that's why I don't want to overdo it. So, now these guys are going in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, no more than an hour. I don't want super firm fish, and I don't want to draw out too much moisture. I want it to be just right, just like everything. Pea check. So, we're checking on the peas. I think they're done. They look mushy. They're starting to mush, for sure. They're looking very brown.
It's not That is good. That is really good. The marrow fat really brought something to that. I'm quite surprised about that. So now I'm going to do something that's sure to not piss off anybody. I'm going to make the mushy peas smooth. Oh god. For god's sake, Babish. This is perfectly normal and fine what I'm doing. Nobody's going to be mad. It's fine. Here we go. You rolling? Good. Don't want to miss this. He's making a mushy pea smoothie. A little too thick. Let me get some more of that cooking water in there. This is all something I've never done before.
Just had this idea this morning. I'm sure they're just being like, "Wow, this guy has great ideas." Oh, sacrilege. No, it's fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. To be honest, this would be good baby food. Yeah. How will I ever incorporate the food coloring? knew I thought I might make new friends today. I don't know if it's going to happen now. [snorts] So I'll just Okay. I'm going to take this in a different direction. I think we're just going to do normal ass mushy peas. That's the best thing he's done all day.
Oh, so he's a boring bastard. I might not know mushy peas, okay? But uh one thing I do know is mayonnaise. And I know if you want to make the best tartar sauce you've ever had in your life, you got to make your own mayonnaise. So starting off with one egg that I'm cracking into a container the same width as my immersion blender head. Almost want to add one teensy little clove of garlic. Most cloves of garlic you probably want to cut it in half or even a quarter. And we have strong Irish mustard. Just keeping the whole non-British theme going with this with these fish and chips. Traveled this far for this. One pinch salt. Little tiny squeeze of lemon juice.
There we go. All smooth. Keep the immersion blender head in the cup and carefully pour oil down the side so it settles on top of the egg. One cup of oil per egg. Now that we have all the oil in there settled on top, I'm going to crank the immersion blender full speed on the bottom, wait until it emulsifies and then slowly pulse slowly pulse upward. I'm just going to slowly pulse this up, okay? Babish, you dirty [clears throat] dog. And now, I promise you, if you grab a bottle of Hellmann's or whatever store-bought mayonnaise you have and have a full spoonful, this is the only one you're going to want to swallow. Oh my god.
How'd that sound? [clears throat] So, for my tartar sauce, I love to load it up with all different kinds of herbs. I'm also going to add a little bit of crème fraîche. Whenever I make potato salad or anything, you know, any kind of mayonnaise-based dressing, which is what tartar sauce is, I usually add some sour cream, which crème fraîche sour cream pretty much analogs. This one's fancier, so they're probably going to like that. And uh it's just going to bring a little tang. It's going to bring a little zip. For even further zip, instead of lemons, just to be an I'm going to use yuzu extract. Whoa.
Yuzu in tartar, dude. This is yuzu extract instead of just yuzu juice, which means it's probably going to be pretty sour, but there's only one way to find out. That was too much. [snorts] I can't see. Oh my god. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I've never worked in a restaurant. I'll grab my mayonnaise, about a cup's worth of mayonnaise here. Then, let's say 3 Tbsp of creme fraiche first. I don't want to overdo it. Then I have about 2 Tbsp worth of capers. Now I've got some cornichon, as well as one of the little pickled onions that comes in cornichon. I'm going to finely mince these likewise. I've got five little cornichon here. Mustn't forget the
little cocktail onion. I'm also going to add a little bit of finely minced shallot, or as the Americans call it a shallot. I've got some lovely fresh chives here. Then the marjoram. This I just sort of imagined, and I don't know if it would work flavor-wise, so Ooh. I'm going to add a little bit. Let's see what happens. Yeah, you can't have too many lovely bright fresh herbs in a tartar sauce. No, I agree with that. I've also got some fresh dill here. I just love dill in seafood so much. 2 Tbsp of chopped parsley. This is no job for a tiny whisk. This is a job for a big old normal-sized whisk.
Mhm. That's going to be good with seafood. Mhm. Now let's try a little bit of yuzu. Oh, that is interesting and vital and important. [snorts] You can taste it, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to identify what it is. Like I'd be like, "There's something different. There's something new. There's something important and vital happening in this tartar sauce." This is a little runny, though. Just going to quickly cover it in cling film, and I'm going to put it outside because it is currently a toasty like 5° outside, so let's see what happens. Time for the second fry. These guys are a
little soft, which is exactly what they're supposed to be, just like me. And uh now they're going to have to fry. We're going to crisp their asses right up. In they go. Still a lot of moisture cooking off. Still a lot of moisture. Don't want these to get too much darker. They smell good. Okay. Please God, let these be crispy. Please God. I have to say, this is looking promising. Look crispy. I might give them another quick fry right before I serve them.
Just to heat them up and to drive off that last wee bit of moisture. Okay, time to make the batter for the fish. Here we go. I have 150 g of all-purpose flour, then 75 g each white rice flour and potato starch. Then we're going to add half a teaspoon of paprika, half teaspoon of turmeric, half teaspoon of baking powder and 3/4 of a teaspoon kosher salt. This is basically Heston Blumenthal's method for fish and chip batter with the addition of baking powder for lightness and potato starch, which we've had great success in our fried chicken tests. So, we wanted to give it a spin with this. So, this starch is going to just help crisp up the batter. Should be a really good move. To our dry
ingredients, we're going to add 200 ml of vodka. And then we need, of course, to add beer. And why add a British lager when you we could just get to use an American lager? I'm going to say something controversial. American lager is better than British lager. Now, I'm going to whisk this together gently. There can be some lumps in it. There should be some lumps in it. Looks like pancake batter. Ooh, there's a great color to this batter. It's definitely going to fry up nicey nice. I'm going to take some of the batter.
I'm going to throw it in an iSi whip. This is a whipped cream thing. Can I do this? I'm going to pour it everywhere. I We believe in you. We I've made enough fuck-ups today in front of these dudes. Need to be a little bit professional. There we go. Now, similarly, and I'm going to pour that right into this squeeze bottle. Doing this in the whip container, this is basically forcing a ton of bubbles into the batter, which is going It's already designed to be light and fluffy and airy. This could be the level. I'm very hopeful. There's no reason this shouldn't be absolutely delicious. Let's try it first with one of our smaller pieces.
There we are. Now this guy's headed straight in 400° F oil. Wow. Jesus Christ, the size of the bubbles on this. Holy crap. We don't have any exposed fish. I shouldn't be manipulating this so much. I'm just curious this first go round. The more you touch this the more like craggles and stuff you're going to lose. But, luckily we have another trick for that. Once we have a nice set batter and just kind of Now I just got to flip it over. Get the other side. Yes. Yeah, craggles in the oil. Craggles in You got to find this like resonant spot where it's hitting the fish but also hitting the oil. So it sets
but also doesn't you know fly off. Look at that. Look at the craggles upon that. I can't say where I learned this technique from. It was from a YouTube video, a couple chefs having fun in their restaurant or something in England. Ooh. Show us that cross-section. Ooh, it's a little undercooked. I could have let it go 30 seconds longer I think. But this I mean this actually looks completely cooked. That's definitely a little medium rare but I'm going to eat it. Here we go. WOAH, LISTEN TO that crunch. I'll tell you what that does. That works. [snorts] Fish actually might be almost perfectly cooked. If I let it rest it just for like another 2 minutes I think it would have gone up over. Wow, it's so
flavorful. Man, that's great. Picking up on the citrus zest. The batter itself has ever such a mild spice like profile to it. That with some tartar sauce is going to be really something special. So, it's time to plate it up. And I'm going to do it super annoying starting with a slate. Oh, not the slate. Your anguish fuels me. What we need to do is something like uh kind of Oh, It was going so well up until this point. There we go. I have two big pools here. That's going to be good for two pieces of fish. The fish looks like it's genuinely Michelin level. Yeah. I'm going to decoratively arrange these about the plate. Of course, we need some mushy peas dotted about. Then, I'm going to
Oh, more sauce? No. Put the sauce down, man. Thanks. Just as a little treat for our friends, ossetra caviar. This being haute cuisine, I'd be remiss not to bust out the tweezers and the microgreens. Oh, oh no. What is that? Microgreens. Oh. There you have it. Utterly traditional, completely authentic fish and chips. So, now it's time to see what they think it is. Bang. Holy moly. Jesus. Shall we? We shall. It is unusual. The fish itself looks actually conventional. Yeah, well And it looks mega. But we were saying this is has a special place in our heart this recipe cuz this is the best fish
and chips batter I've ever tried. And you've added the potato starch, which is a point of difference. So, look at that. Could be a level up. Look at that, yeah. That is one, yeah. Now, this is the best bit, the scraps on the top. Yeah. Really well done as well. It's hard It's harder than it looks to actually achieve that texture. Vinegar or salt? Salt and vinegar. I'm not a big vinegar fan, so stick it to your half. Right. So, in the UK when you get asked salt and vinegar, yours you say plenty and then they doubt it and you have to tell them to stop. I'm going to go for it. Oh.
That's good. Well, they're working on That's next level. What? Yeah. Mussels and chips. Look at the inside. A little bit that they're crispy. Very light. Semi-crispy. You can see from the color that there's a bit higher amount of sugar in these chips that they're browning a bit quicker, but the flavor of them is nice cuz you get the sweetness coming through it. The shape although unconventional does lead to an ultra-crispy finish. Obviously, all those sides get hit. Now, what I will say is British fish and chips the chips are not this crispy.
They're soggy, steamed in a bag, covered in salt and vinegar. Let's go for the mushy peas. Now, this is I have to confess maybe not my favorite part of the fish and chips. In fact, I will say I didn't like them back home. They are one of those things that you always Everyone assumes it to be a British thing, but do many people like it? Probably more like the older generation. So, the bone marrow does give a really nice sort of richness to it. Mhm. That's delicious, that. I'm not sure about them. I don't think anyone in the UK has ever put a micro herb on a mushy pea. No, I don't think so, either. That's a first for me.
It's not a first since play. That's a first. Potentially, that was one that could um isn't needed. Yeah, I feel that's This is professional rage bait. You can set that down for a side a second. Oh, can you hear that? Oh. Promising. That's a good crisp when you have to saw through it. Just so much caviar in the way. Oh, look at that crust. It's [snorts] almost like the fish delicately sandwiched between a burger bun of batter. make things better, right? That is good. And the fish is still juicy. Look, can see it's translucent. Babish, my friend?
Oh god. This is awesome. Okay. That's good. The tartar sauce flavor, let's give it a little taste. Remember the yuzu went in there. You didn't get too much, huh? I don't think it's too much. I think it's really nice. The only thing I'd say about tartar sauce is maybe I prefer it thicker. No, but he had to Sorry, yeah, I forgot about that. Remember. Yeah. So, we were concerned The fish you get about the halibut being overcooked. It's incredibly well cooked.
The zest, which didn't get rinsed off, is still in there. I get the zest. It's perfectly cooked. It's flaky. It's crispy. To be honest, you won't find a British fish and chips as good as this. You won't find a batter as good as that. No. I don't think batter gets much better than that. Oh my god. It's the nicest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. [snorts] You should have been a restaurant. Huh? Friday night fish fry with Babish with a bit of a long name. Um so, let's let's let's run through this. Potatoes. Not traditional by any means in the way that they were cooked, steamed. I've never seen it use vinegar before.
[snorts] Mhm. I think the vinegar makes them go quite dark, but they are light, crispy, delightful, and a very interesting and unusual shape. And I think it works for this plate of food as well because they're delicious and tasty, but the fish in that batter is such a star that you almost don't need the chips to be ultra crispy because you've got all that texture coming from the fish. Yeah. And the potatoes taste delicious ultimately, and that's obviously the main thing is that the flavor's there. Mashed your peas, what do you think? I think they're as good as a mushy pea can get. Yeah. But the thing is,
it's a mushy pea at the end of the day. Do you think the micro herbs really come out in the mushy peas or No. I think the micro herbs could stay. Yeah, micro herbs can go. And the micro herbs can go. Yeah. Really good. Choice of fish, perfect. Yeah. Curing on the fish, perfect. Batter, perfect. I would only The only thing I would say about this, I would personally have it a little bit less cooked. It's a fine balance though, right? Getting that crisp. We love the crisp. Yeah, we're chefs as well that we like our fish a little bit under, but in general it's a bloody good fish and chips. You'll never get a fish cooked that well in the UK. That's my prediction.
Well, we pretty much demolished the whole thing, so. [snorts] I probably wouldn't take this through in summer. No, I was not. I was really not. I um God, I can't tell you how much all that means to me, guys. Um I know I had some I was taking the piss in a couple different ways, but I really wanted to make something that was really tasty for you guys and um I'm I'm going to cry. Just I can't believe that 10 years after I started this it's 10 years to the day that we're shooting this episode that I was just around in my kitchen never imagining that you know anybody would watch my videos much less that I would eventually meet
you guys and like have you eat my food and like it's overwhelming. Uh so I thank you guys so much. Well, thank you for having me. I didn't know you wanted to test any more recipes when we're here. It's true. Okay, cool. Just less microgreens next time. I'm going to have some more microgreens. Okay, what I'm going to get make is a microgreen salad. Well, that was one of the defining experiences of my life. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed. We did. God bless him.
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