fish and chips with tempura-style coating

All of the British pubs here have a coating on their fish and chips that is very crispy and flaky. It has been likened to tempura, panko crumbs and even crushed pork rinds.
 
My guesses are beer batter, sparkling water, or whipped egg whites.
 
I'm specifically thinking of the Kings Head and the Robin Hood pub in Los Angeles.
 
 

  We use a tempura style batter for our fish'n'chips where I work. It is a dry product that you only have to add water to. It is a great product! We used to make our own beer batter with beer and flour and a little baking powder and a little egg shade. We found the other product by accident and have been using it ever since.
 Check into your local Walmart or Sam's Club for this product.

  David O.

You can take a box of Krispy mix fish breader or similar fry mix and mix with cornstarch  (1/3-1/2 cup) and add beer or water to make a slurry that's about the consistancy of pancake batter. That makes a very good tempura-type batter that I understand is very similar. Serve with malt vinegar.
 
 
Edit brain glitch

Oh how I miss the King's Head. I'd love to figure how they do that.

For a light tempura coating, try using soft wheat flour or cake flour, mix in some tapioca starch (potato or cornstarch can be substituted if you can't get tapioca starch), a small amount of baking powder, and enough iced water to make a thin runny batter. Beer or sparkling water might work well.   The batter shuold run down and leave only a thin coat.  I wouldn't add egg unless you want a thick or heavier coating. 

a lot of the mom-and-pop fast-food places around here are owned by asian families, and their fish and chip recipe is a thin tempura batter, followed by a panko breading, then deep-fried until golden brown. usually tempura batter is made fresh and kept ice-cold, but these places usually mix a batch before opening at 11am and use it up around 2pm, sometimes later.. the same batter/breading is used for chicken tenders, onion rings, jalapeno poppers etc...

Elise,

There may be eggs in the batter. The yolks will bind the batter and adding whipped whites will cause some rising and flakiness too.
The one ingredient that is sometimes added but not mentioned so far is the inclusion of some oil in the batter. This is not a unique suggestion, most batters have some kind of fat/oil in it.
Here is a recent example. This fish has expanded twice its size in flakiness. It almost looks like I opened a box of Groton's:

I have since tried the batter and panko method, and it works very well. No photos though.
Besides beer, I have used lemon/lime soda as the main liquid. The same type of soda is really good in pancake batter.

mark

I make Emeril's tempura chicken fingers from his recipe off the Food Network, and cornstarch seems to be a key ingredient.  It's very good, and includes a home-made plum sauce for dipping, that's just so-so, I'd just buy something made up already in the Asian section of the grocery. 

I make fish and chips quite often and it's just a simple beer batter recipe I use made up of flour, an egg, beer, oil, salt and pepper.  It makes a very light, crispy batter.  Also the majority of fish and chip shops here fry in pure lard.



Here's a link to a good recipe:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Traditional-Fish-and-Chips

kirstine


I make fish and chips quite often and it's just a simple beer batter recipe I use made up of flour, an egg, beer, oil, salt and pepper.  It makes a very light, crispy batter.  Also the majority of fish and chip shops here fry in pure lard.



Here's a link to a good recipe:

http://hubpages.com/hub/Traditional-Fish-and-Chips

 
Sorry to divert the thread for a moment but.....

That plate of food takes me way back to when I used to live in Belfast. Thirty five years and I still miss not only the fish and chips but also the sausage and chips. We used to go to Ballycastle for fish and chips from a mobile van that parked near the beach. Amazingly good. But the best was when one of the women would make fish and chips for dinner and serve them with those peas and a few slices of Omagh white.  Marrowfat I think the peas were called. Just a great meal. Thanks for the flashback. I'm going to save the photo in my iPhoto library. 

and now back to the recipes. 

Allan

I love good fish and chips and can never find them.

I looked up Elise's examples and found that the Robin Hood Pub was close by.  So, that's where I had lunch today!

I should realize that when a menu offers a 1/2 price plate that it means the full size plate is large.  Here's my plate:  (Ignore the drink)



When it was served to me I thought that they're serving me 2 hunks of fried bread.  Little did I know that beneath that crispy coating was very light, tasty Icelandic Cod.  DELICIOUS!

I was only able to eat only one piece.  The coating was brilliant! Crispy doesn't come close to describing the crispiness.  What intrigued me was the shape.  The bottom of the fish which I didn't photograph was round like a twinkie.  It didn't have the fine, weblike crust like the top did.  It's almost (or maybe it is) like they lower the battered fish into the oil while in some sort of a holder.

When the waitress asked how I liked it I said "It's delicious, What kind of batter is this?"

Her answer:  "It's a secret recipe and I can't tell you".

Well I tried.  I'll also try again because thanks to Elise I found a new place for lunch.

Thank you!