Fish 'N' chips in lemon batter

Somebody on the Moneysaving Expert forum said they were having fish and chips today, that lit a spark in my head and now nothing else will do!

Home made lemon battered Basa fish

I have my basic batter recipe, as everybody does, which works for me.  It's easy and quicker than queuing up at our local chippy.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1. 2 cups of plain flour
2. 1 large egg beaten
3. Enough sparkling water (or tap water, I buy carbonated water from the basics range, about £0.17p per 2ltr bottle so use this if I've got an open bottle)
4. 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (I use bottled)
5. 2 Basa (River cobbler) fillets, I like to use sustainably sourced fish wherever possible
6. S&P
7. Enough sunflower or vegetable oil in a frying pan to come half way up your fish fillets

Ensure your fish fillets are really dry by blotting with kitchen paper otherwise your batter won't stick this really is key to successfully making a battered fish.

On a plate put one cup of flour seasoned with salt and pepper.

Put your oil onto a medium heat to warm, whilst that's happening take a large bowl and beat your egg and the remaining flour together with the lemon juice and enough water to make a very thick batter.  It really needs to be like a mud pie.  See the video below for those who haven't made batter before to show how thick it should be.

Once your batter is prepared, turn the heat up under the oil until it is hot enough to fry a blob of the batter to crisp and golden within 50 seconds.  Do not leave this unattended from this point, if it's smoking hot turn it down or take off the heat for a while and re test for heat with another  blob of batter.  You want it hot enough to crisp the outside whilst the fish cooks perfectly inside, it can take a bit of practice.

Dip your fish first into the flour, pressing it down on both sides to coat and then into the batter, coating thoroughly.  Now straight into the oil, put it down so that you let go of the end facing away from you to prevent being splattered with hot oil.

Fry for 2-3 minutes on one side (cooking time varies with thickness of the fish) and when it's golden and crisp turn it over and do the same on the other side.

Serve immediately, we had fries and salad and Himself also had deep fried 'batter blobs' which are basically the remaining batter spooned into the oil to puff up and crisp.