“Yes,” she responded brightly, “we have them year round.”
I was at the U-district farmers market on a promising Saturday morning. The sun was lazily making its way out of bed, shrugging off a morning mist and gathering strength for the day’s work ahead. The market had just opened its gates and I was there—unusually bright and brisk for the hour—with the farmers, the dedicated locavores, the foodies, and those unfortunates who had been woken at dawn by bouncing bundles of youthful energy. “One day,” I imagined parents saying soothingly to each other, “one day they will become civilized and require a decent amount of caffeine before erupting into wakefulness. Until then, honey, we’ll just have to muster patience and fortitude.” Having already had my caffeine I was in excellent spirits, made even brighter by the discovery of Heston’s lauded Maris Piper potatoes at the Olsen Farm stand.
Deciding that perhaps H. Blumenthal Esq. wasn’t the only expert whose advice was worth noting, I asked the potato lady which variety she would use for frying. “Bintje,” she answered without hesitation, pointing to a pile of spuds that were in shape, texture, and color very similar to Maris Pipers. “They’re starchy enough to fluff up well but they still get nice and crispy on the outside.” So I bought a couple pound for good measure.
There wasn’t much in the way of fish at the market so I opted for Whole Foods. What would the fish guy recommend? Halibut and rock cod. Since the latter was half the price, I bought 1 1/2 pounds of it and a mere 1/2 pound of halibut, just to test the difference. Potatoes, check; fish, check. A couple hours and a particularly exasperating ferry line later I was back in the kitchen.
The process of frying fish and chips is great fun, but I found the most gleeful part of making this meal was the preparation of the batter, a matter I attended to with child-like delight. It involved concocting a mixture of plain flour, rice flour, baking powder, honey, beer, and—surprise surprise—vodka. So boozy, I knew it would be a winner. The beer is added last, and immediately afterward the batter is poured into a whip-it canister and injected with a cartridge of CO2. The canister is then chilled until you are ready to fry the fish, at which point you simply fire the contents into a bowl, coat the fish, and then fry immediately. The batter is wonderfully aerated and once fried it transforms into a delectably light, bubbly, crispy coating for the melting softness of fish.
And the final verdict on the fish? The rock cod won by a landslide over the halibut. The flakes were larger and more ethereal and the chunks cooked through without drying out. Plunge the battered fish into hot oil, let sizzle for a minute, gently turn over and continue frying until golden brown, about another minute or two. The fish may not be totally cooked but the residual heat from its sizzled envelop of batter with finish it off before it reaches the table.
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