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In the same way that there is probably some truth in the Chinese claim to have invented the noodle that became the ubiquitous Italian pasta, the origins of the archetypical British dish of fish n’chips seems to stem from Sephardic Jewish and French Protestant immigrants to the UK. In the mid-18th century, fishing trawlers became large enough to catch significant numbers of North Sea bottom-feeding white fish and domestic railroads expanded so that much of the UK began to have cheap and regular access to this fresh bounty. Also at this time, the potato-cooking skills of French Hugenot immigrants and the fish-frying traditions of Southern European Jews came together in what was to be a lasting and wildly popular marriage.

The French fry had been invented years earlier when the poor had first ventured to cook this new world tuber - originally only thought good enough for animal feed – and these techniques have continued to be refined to this day. Jews immigrating to the UK and other areas of Northern Europe having been expelled from Portugal and Spain brought matza (matzo, matzoh, matsah,) with them, which they knew to be an excellent coating for fish when ground or crumbed. Combining these two techniques with the endemic British passion for beer and deep-frying, resulted in one of the most famous exports from the British Isles since limey sailors began spreading a horrifying variety of VDs in port cities the world over. 

Today’s fish n’chips (depending on where you go) still closely resemble the original ideas found in Portuguese fried fish dishes pescado frito, in which strips of fish are dunked in a light batter of water, matzo flour and salt, then rolled in crumbed matzo before deep-frying in a cauldron of hot oil. In fact, the Portuguese are sometimes credited with having introduced this technique to Japan where it developed into the extremely delicious tempura style. In the UK, beer was often added in place of water to the flour (typically plain flour nowadays, rather than matzo) and salt, with the resulting batter being richer, but somehow lighter, frothier and more golden colored.

The British habit of “chipping” potatoes into larger batons than the continental Europeans, and now the Americans, and only frying them once, appears to just be a local habit. Some have suggested that the UK picked up on an early potato-cooking technique and kept it while the more culinarily-advanced French and Belgians continued to experiment with thinner-cut potatoes and double-frying, so that they perfected the golden and crunchy frites of today. I prefer to think of the British technique to be based not on ignorance, but on textural appreciation. For why have a crispy deep-fried fish and pair it with something else crispy? Why not pair it with something softer and more unctious?

My Life with Fish n’Chips

Anyway, fish n’chips became incredibly popular in the UK and its colonies around the world, with the chip shop still a fixture on virtually every town’s high street in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. For much of my youth, growing up in provincial England, it was one of only two choices for cheap, take-away/out food – the other being the uniformly foul and greasy hole that was the Golden Lantern Chinese take-out, so fish n’chips played an important role in our Friday night social traditions. After choir practice at our local church, we’d often hit the chip shop for a “slap-up” dinner of cod & chips with mushy peas, and bread & scrape (sliced white bread with lard), all washed down with our weekly soda allowance – a can of Lilt (a pineapple and grapefruit flavored soda).

Mr. Chips, the snappily-titled chip shop in my Cheshire town was universally known as just “the chippy” and, correspondingly - demonstrating some terribly enlightened feelings towards the town’s tiny, but most obvious, ethnic population - the Golden Lantern, was referred to as “the Chinky”. Subsequently, this ordinary little town has gentrified virtually beyond recognition, with all manner of ethnic restaurants elbowing aside these two bastions of atherosclerosis. However, echoes of these former times can still be heard in local parlance. Sadly, the Golden Lantern is gone, replaced by Slow Boat and Treasure Village, which now, demonstrating how times have changed for the better, are referred to as “the Chinese”; Mughli, an Indian restaurant, is either ”the curry house” or “the Indian”, and Est! Est! Est! is “the Italian”.

Fish n’chip restaurants still play a significant role in British gastronomic and cultural life. As with many countries, the UK has recently undergone a revolution in its food traditions, returning to basics and local ingredients and striving for sustainability. This has led to a re-evaluation and revival of many traditional dishes, including the hugely devalued fish n’chips. With North Sea cod stocks (like cod almost everywhere) having crashed due to overfishing, some traditions have had to change, and now other white fish are used including hake, halibut and haddock in its place, but the typical methods of beer and matzo batter, quality malt vinegar, fine sea salt and first-class British potatoes cooked in beef tallow (beef lard) are emerging again, much to my delight.

We’re heading to London to visit my new nephew in a couple of weeks, and will be hitting up arguably the finest chip shop in the capital, Fryer’s Delight in Holborn, which you will be the first to hear about right here in these pages. To date though, the best fish n’chips I ever had was at a very dodgy-looking chippy in Fleetwood, Lancashire (NW England, about 1.5hrs north of Manchester). Overlooking the grey and miserable-looking Irish Sea, I ate perfectly fried, golden cod, soft and salty chips and deliciously thick marrowfat mushy peas. It was a glorious, all-English experience.

But don’t think that fish n’chips only comes with mushies – oh no, variations abound in dressings. While the traditional is the simple sea salt and malt vinegar with a side of tartar sauce and M.P’s, others include, parsley sauce, brown gravy, curry sauce, garlic sauce, piccalilli, mayonnaise, Henderson’s relish, Worcestershire sauce, pea wet or pea’s water (liquid strained from peas during the creation of mushy peas) which is often free, baked beans, cheese or cheese curds, coleslaw, ketchup, chilli sauce, thousand island dressing, salad cream, chip spice, brown sauce, and summer savory (turkey stuffing & gravy), to name but a few.

Ever striving for the traditional in our take on the dish, we went with a pale ale batter, beautiful Atlantic cod (yes, i know it’s unsustainable, but our fishmonger doesn’t sell haddock or hake) thick cut chips, homemade mushy peas, homemade tartar sauce and, perhaps excessively, homemade curry sauce – my wife being a huge fan of dipping sauces. In fact, all of them are fiendishly easy to make, but as with most simple dishes, the key is high quality ingredients. Old potatoes and a shitty piece of fish even when perfectly fried will still taste like a turd. Similarly, beautifully fresh potatoes and cod fried in rancid old oil will be a disaster. Make sure you buy everything as fresh as possible. Fresh potatoes have very few “eyes” and yield a nice sheen of liquid when peeled, and fresh cod or haddock (hake is fine also) will have wonderfully shiny skin and nice firm flesh. If it’s already flaky and soft do not buy it, instead sharply reprimand your fishmonger for having the temerity to sell such tat.

Fish n’Chips with Mushy Peas, + Tartar and Curry Sauces (serves 2-3)

Those of you who have watched or read Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity, will be familiar with the idea of top fives. In the movie, the main character (played by John Cusack) is a record shop owner, who spends most of the movie revisiting the demise of his past relationships, and in so doing, constantly re-imagines his top five break-up songs according to how each break-up made him feel. However, top fives are not limited to songs or relationships, you can have a top five anything: top five smells, top five colors, top five sneaker brands, top five breakfast foods, etc., anything at all.

There are only two rules to top fives: one, everyone’s top fives are different, i.e. there is no single right or wrong top five; and two, your own top five selection will almost certainly change over time, as Cusack’s did according to the particular break-up.

One top five that I spent much of my early twenties thinking about is my top five crisps, or potato chips. Much of this thinking was done in the pub because a) much of my social life was in the pub, and b) after a number of pints, one often finds oneself craving salty snacks. This craving led to the purchase of far too many bags of crisps in a variety of halitosis-inducing flavors, followed by lengthy arguments about their various merits.

The purists, and I happen to agree, would argue that you shouldn’t compare potato crisps with cheese puffs because the latter are made from corn. It would be like comparing dogs to cats. So rather than do a top five salty, packaged snack foods that are good with beer, this is simply a top-five potato crisp/chip flavors. Of course, this begs the question what my top five salty, packaged snack foods are, or if a better top five would be my top five cheesy corn snacks, but that would be another post, or number of other posts.

Please post your own top five potato chip/crisp flavors in the comments section with or

without lines of reasoning, because yours won’t be the same as mine, and my top five might even change if you suggest a flavor I’ve left out. It’s all very subjective, and, some may say, pointless, but I love top fives because they are a source of endless and purile debate, which in election season might just be the antidote you need.The “best” top five (selected according to how I’m feeling at the time) will win a flavor-selection of fine English crisps.

(Please note that you might not be familiar with some of my top five – the UK, generally speaking, leads the world in the variety of potato crisp/chip flavors available – but there are many flavors available in the US now so this shouldn’t be a problem.)

Top Five Potato Crisps/Chips Flavors (in reverse order)

5. beef & onion (sounds nasty, and is, in a way – meat flavor potatoes anyone? but, like #4, it’s a taste investment)

4. cheese & onion (similar to cheese & chive, but the onion-y tang gives it that little extra oomph now and through the morning after)

3. worcestershire sauce (it really does taste like Lea & Perrins’ classic condiment, not as stinky as #5, but still tangy enough when you’re drunk)

2. prawn cocktail (this flavor began resembling cocktail sauce (ketchup & horseradish), but these days has a slightly shrimpy, sweet tomato taste. Too fishy for some, just right for me.)

1. Of course, the king, beating out every other flavor by a country mile, salt n’vinegar. What can I say? It’s just magnificent. The perfect combination of salt and acid with the fried potato taste of the crisp. Cuts the beery mouth feel and encourages salivation, then requires more beer to refresh the slightly parched tongue, and when you get to the bottom corners of the bag where all the flavor and crumbs reside, the vinegar’ll turn your lips purple. Glancing around the pub, you tell you’re not alone as you spot other sn’v lovers by shade of their lips.

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• The Forbes Top 10 Celebrity Chef List (Be Prepared To Cry)
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We had been craving steak all week but told ourselves, we must wait until the weekend. After a martini at the bar, I was more than ready to sink my teeth into some medium-rare steak. We did not care about how much fat we were ingesting either, so don’t expect this to be a low-fat meal. Hey, come on! It’s FRIDAY. We deserve a little indulgence, right? Are we the only ones out there that like to (or are able to) indulge in a bit of extra wine/drink and extra fat in their meal? We’d love to know what your weekend indulgence is (even if it’s not food…).

GRILLED SHELL STEAK WITH TARRAGON/GARLIC BUTTER AND SPICY FRIES

Serves 2

For the steak:

• 2 shell steaks (or your fave cut of meat)
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• sea salt
• olive oil

For the Tarragon Butter:

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• fresh tarragon, mashed into a paste
• 1 clove of garlic, mashed into a paste
• light pinch of salt
• 1 piece of plastic wrap

For the Spicy French Fries:

• 3 Idaho potatoes, skin on, sliced into thick strips
• vegetable oil for deep frying
• SEASONING SALT
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon fresh pepper
  • 1 teaspoon onion powser
  • 1 teaspoon spoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon sweet paprika
  • 1 teaspoon chipotle powder (could substitute cayenne)

Creamy Tarragon Mushrooms (Optional Topping – in Addition to or in place of the Tarragon Butter)

• 6 large brown mushrooms, sliced
• 1/2 small onion – diced
• 1/2 tablespoon butter
• 3 tablespoons light cream
• chopped tarragon

***This is also really good on grilled chicken or pork. Just make more if it will be the main sauce for your dish.

What to do:

1. Rub your steak with olive oil and with the sliced garlic and a sprinkle of kosher salt on both sides. Let rest at room temperature white you make the rest of your stuff.
2. If your butter is not soft, throw it in the microwave in a small bowl for about 5-10 seconds to soften.
3. Take a clove of garlic and chop it. With a mortar and pestle, add the chopped garlic and mash it into a paste. With a spoon, scrape out of the bottom of your mortar to get all that delicious paste and add that to your softened butter
4. Using a good palmful of fresh tarragon, give it a rough chop and put in your mortar with a small pinch of kosher salt to aid in the smashing. Do your best to mash that into a paste as well. Again, scrape the bottom to get out all the delciousness and add that to your softened butter.
5. Mix the tarragon/garlic butter so it’s all well-incorporated. Scrape out the green-ish butter on to a piece of plastic wrap. Shape it into roll, twisting the sides of the saran wrap so it looks a bit like a salt water taffy wrapper (hope this makes sense). Put into the freezer to set up.
6. If you want to make the optional mushroom topping, saute your sliced mushrooms with the diced onions in the butter and a small pinch of salt and pepper. When soft, add your cream and let reduce a bit till the cream melds with the mushroom/onions and it becomes a thick sauce. Add your tarragon and stir. Turn heat to low and keep warm, stirring every once in awhile.
7. Heat up your veggie oil. Cut your potatoes and mix your seasoning salt.
8. Heat up your grill pan so it’s VERY hot.
9. Fry your potatoes once, till they take on just a bit of color. Take out and let rest. Fry them again until golden brown.
10. While your fries are frying one more time, grill your meat for 2 minutes on each side. Take off the grill, sprinkle the top with some sea salt (I’m telling you, it’s amazing and it melts into your meat) and let rest white you finish assembling.
11. Take your double-fried fries out and let drain. While still hot, add your fries to a bowl with the seasoning and toss so they are all coated.
12. Plate up. Take your compound butter out of the freezer and slice a 3/4 of an inch slice and top your warm steak with it. It will melt all over. Add your fries and a side of greens (we used grilled asparagus). ENJOY!

NOTE: We also got a bit more indulgent with this meal but sprinkling some white truffle oil we bought in Italy all over the asparagus and on the meat/fries. It was so good.

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