French Fried

I already made a Fish and Chips dinner with Trout and Homemade Potato Chips, but I was feeling a little ambitious and decided to make a more traditional version with French Fries and Beer Battered Cod. There's a fresh fish market just down the street, so I just went down and picked up some fresh cod. Ah, it's so nice to be in the city.

Fish and chips used to be one of my favorite things to eat as a kid, but I haven't had it in forever. I've sort of grown accustomed to only eating things that are good for me now. I'm fully aware that healthy food can taste good and find it hard to eat anything solely for taste alone. I find it hard to rationalize eating, say, pepperoni pizza, when I know I'll enjoy a Nice Curry just as much, if not more, and feel better about it, both mentally and physically, afterwards. I mean, part of the reason I like to make my own meals now is because I know exactly what goes into them. Despite this, it's still nice to indulge now and then and I find the whole idea of deep frying things quite fascinating.

The only thing I've ever deep fried in my life was doughnuts with my grandma. I've shallow fried a few things in my time, but it's not nearly the same. There are some things you just can't do with a half inch of oil and a skillet. Plus, an entire pot of near-boiling oil just has a risqué element of danger to it. I mean, if that catches on fire, you're in for it now! Even those tiny little splatters that occasionally hit your arm makes you feel like you're really alive! Or maybe that's just me, because I don't get out much.

Enough babbling. This was actually one of the most expensive dinners I've made, since I had to buy a whole bunch of oil and I also bought a proper thermometer because, despite the facade of danger and excitement I'm known for and display on a daily basis, there's no way I'm making fries in my apartment without a thermometer. Since the fries had the highest oil temperature to register, if we made it through with that, then the fish would be a cinch.

On the first batch of fries the oil was bubbling so close to the edge of the pot that I turned the heat off, then back on, then off, then on again, with huge amounts of hesitation on whether hot oil was about to pour over the edges onto the red hot element and send me to the hospital with a really bad lawsuit. Did I mention that Shannon burned down her apartment once? She was handling this better than I was. Then everything was fine. After a few batches, I was actually somewhat confident (the other 5 beers from the six pack helped) that nothing bad was going to happen. Then I started to become worried that my confidence would inevitably lead to something bad and hot oil would spill over while I watched television or something. Ah, drama.

The fries sat warm in the oven while we made the fish. After the first dip into the batter, as soon as it fluffed up and started to brown around the cod, I felt like a magician. It made me realize that no matter how much I've actually learned about cooking, there are still a billion little things like frying battered fish that are still so new, foreign and exciting to me. After finishing all of the fish, I bit into the first one we cooked and it was not good. The inside was still doughy. So we just threw all the pieces back into the deep fryer and made them even more crisp and brown. Crisis adverted.

I made a Basil Mayo Dip to go with the fries and Tartar Sauce to go with the fish. Who knew tartar sauce was so simple? Why would anyone buy commercially prepared tartar sauce unless they eat fish sticks on a daily basis? I also wanted to make Coleslaw, but since I've made the basic, creamy coleslaw so many times, I made a different, Lemon Dill Coleslaw. Basically, it tasted like sweetened Tzatziki with shredded cabbage. Neither of us were big fans. We did eat all of the French fries, but could not finish the fish. I am typically not a fan of tartar sauce and basically just made it for the site, but actually ate it with almost every bite of the fish. I am a big fan now.