How To Make Fish And Chips At Home

If you want fresh fish and chips, you don't have to cross an ocean to get them.

Mat Arnfield, head chef of the small fish and chips shop in New York called A Salt and Battery, visited The Early Show Monday to show share his secrets on making his pub fryer specialty, so you can make your own!

Arnfield made fish and chips for years at his family-run shop in Northern England. But that changed when the owners of Tea and Sympathy, a famous English bakery in New York, contacted him in 2001, looking for an experienced fryer to start a shop next to theirs. Arnfield jumped at the chance for Big Apple success.

And he has arrived.

In 2007, Arnfield participated in Throwdown with Early Show resident chef Bobby Flay, a competition show in which an Average Joe who specializes in one food takes on Flay to see who has the best recipe. Flay's fish and chips were nowhere near as good as Arnfield's, who easily beat him as the crowd and judge favorite.

Since the win, the popularity of "A Salt and Battery" has grown and grown. People love his stuff, and tourists and locals alike flock for his baskets of fried goodies. "A Salt and Battery" often has lines around the block, and traditional Anglophiles can't sing his praises loud enough.

RECIPES:

BATTERED FISH
2 cups or 8 ounces all-purpose flour plus 1 cup extra for dusting fish
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 fluid ounces seltzer (half a can) 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons
5 fluid ounces beer (I like Boddingtons ale) 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil for the fryer
4 filets of cod or pollock 6 ounces each

Preheat fryer 375 degrees.

Combine 2 cups flour, pinch of salt, and 1 teaspoon of baking powder in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, combine seltzer and beer and start with one cup liquid, whisk into dry ingredients. Batter should be the consistency of heavy cream, add more beer seltzer mixture until you get the right consistency, keep batter chilled until use. Put 1 cup flour in a shallow bowl or plate and coat your fish completely in flour, then dip fish in batter allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Fry fish in the fryer until done. Serve with malt vinegar.

DEEP FRIED ENGLISH MARS BARS
1 English Mars Bar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Oil for frying
One batter recipe (from fish recipe)

Refrigerate mars bars 8 hours or overnight.
Preheat oil in a fryer 375 degrees.
Put flour in a shallow bowl or plate and roll the mars bar in flour until completely covered. Dip in batter and allow excess to drip off back into batter bowl, then back in the flour then batter for the second coat. Place in fryer and fry for 2 minutes then serve immediately.

CHIPS
1 1/2 pounds of idaho potatoes peeled and cut into 8 wedges
Vegetable Oil for frying
Salt
Malt Vinegar

Heat oil in fryer to 325 degrees

Peel potatoes and cut into 8 wedges. Par fry dried potatoes Four to 5 minutes then lay out on paper towels until cooled. For the second fry return chips to fryer and fry until crispy, drain. Salt hot chips and serve with malt vinegar.