Beer Battered Fish Tacos
One if by land, two if by sea.
Way back in high school, I participated in National Novel Writing Month, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: in 30 days, you try to write a 50,000 word novel. I spent a lot of time at school typing away on my PalmPilot Treo1, trying to knock out 1,700 words per day. I bring this up, not to brag about my literary exploits2, but instead because I can’t bring myself to riff on iterations of “Happy Friday!” to start this newsletter. See, one of the first pieces of NaNoWriMo advice for dealing with writer’s block3 is this: just start writing, and the rest will come.
So that’s what I did here, and look, we’re already a paragraph in!
As many of you know, we are members of a community supported fishery based out of Gloucester, MA: Cape Ann Fresh Catch. Each week, we get two pounds of fresh filets delivered to our doorstep — cod, haddock, flounder, red fish, hake… it’s all deadly! And, each Monday, we try to figure out which fish dish we wish to enrich. Mostly it’s a quick pan fry or sauté with lemon and olive oil, but recently, we’ve been doing fish tacos, about which I happen to love everything there is to love.
When making fish tacos, you can keep it simple and blacken and pan sear your fish, or, if you’re feeling particularly ambitious, go with a crispy, fried fish approach. The other night, we chose the later. I adapted the batter mostly from this NYT recipe for fish and chips, mostly because it only involves a single dip of batter, and also because it reminds me of Donaghadee4!
I’ll preface this with saying this is a little more of a hands-on recipe than we normally do here. I’d recommend enlisting the help of a sous chef at least when you get to the actual frying part. Also, the two pounds of fish we did was pretty ambitious from both an effort and quantity perspective; if you’re cooking for two, I would say a pound or less is more than sufficient.
With that out of the way, let’s get crispy.
Start with any firm, white fish (we used flounder) and cut into roughly one inch chunks. Place these little nuggets in a bowl, and dust with salt, pepper, Old Bay (if you have it), and flour — and then set aside. In another bowl, mix about two cups of flour with salt, a hefty shake of Old Bay5, and one tablespoon of baking powder. Heat up about an inch of oil6 in a cast iron pan until it’s shimmering7.
Just before the oil is hot, pour a can8 of beer into the flour mixture and stir9. If it’s too thick, you can thin it out with a little more beer, or, as the NYT recipe suggests, use vodka10. Don't worry too much about it, you just want the batter to be able to stick to the fish.
Once the oil is fully shimmering11, go ahead and dredge your fish in the bubbling batter and drop into the oil12. You'll probably want to do this in batches of 4-5 pieces at a time. Let this cook for a minute or two, and then flip13. Cook this side for another few minutes, then remove from the oil, preferably onto a paper towel or bag.
When all the fish is finished, heat up a few tortillas and serve — ideally with salsa.
There we have it, fish tacos! I imagine this batter would be just as good on chicken or pork14, tofu15, or even veggies16. You don't have to limit yourself to tacos, either -- it's just as good served like fish and chips. Go crazy.
That’s all I’ve got for you this week. At this time tomorrow, ideally, I’ll be en route up to the White Mountains to bag a few Presidential Peaks and maybe, if I’m lucky, stopping at Polly’s Pancakes on the way home. A man can dream. Whatever happens, I’ll be content.
Whether or not you’re summiting mountains, hopefully you’ll get a chance to spend some time outside, maybe cook outdoors, too, and read something interesting. We’ll see you here next week.
Sorry, Madam Philipson!
I eventually finished, writing a novel inspired equally by Bret Easton Ellis, Nigerian email scams, and my at that point entirely imagined ideas of the college experience. I also wholesale pasted about 2,000 words from a Wikipedia article to make up a word gap. Needless to say, it wasn’t a very good book.
Speaking of my writing accomplishments, and of writer’s block, here’s a poem I wrote my senior year of college about that very topic.
Where we watched Chip’s dad eat fish and chips every night for the sixteen years we were there waiting to push off for our North Channel swim.
If you don’t have Old Bay, you can use any blackening seasoning, or just salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a dusting of chili powder and cayenne.
We used peanut, which is the superior frying oil, but any oil tolerant of high heat would do.
If you can, I’d recommend doing the frying outside. This can be a pretty messy process and if you can avoid splattering oil all over your kitchen, do it.
Or bottle. I like a nice Mexican lager, I would caution against anything too heavy.
If you do this before you’re ready to cook, the bubbles in the beer will pop and you’ll have a less crispy fish.
Vodka evaporates more quickly, or something, so you get a crispier exterior.
You can also test if it’s ready by putting a little batter in the oil. If it sizzles and fries, it’s ready. If it doesn’t, let it get a little hotter.
Be careful and maybe wear an apron!
If the batter hasn’t fully crispified, turn them back over and cook a little longer.
Especially if you pound it flat and fry it, schnitzel-style.
If you’re into that sort of thing.
Tempura-style.