Fish 'n' Chips

We embellished upon this English fast food with a yeast dough and thrice cooked sweet potato fries!

Fish and Chips with Sweet Potato Fries

At the Byrd House we love a good ‘fish fry’ with french fries, hush puppies and all the fixings. Yet, there was another fried fish tradition we wanted to try – English Fish ‘n’ Chips. A special yeast batter, combined with paleo friendly sweet potatoes, topped off with a tangy tarter sauce, promised a tasty meal. The Byrd House Paleo twist to this English tradition turned out to be a new Byrd House favorite!

The Fish

The British ‘chippy’ shops trend toward haddock or cod and sometimes plaice (a type of flounder), in their fish n chips, but we decided on Orange Roughy which is a nice white fish that is available frozen at Publix for a decent price.

The Batter

For the traditional beer batter we employed instant yeast for a good rise and egg yolks for golden color. For our chips, we opted for paleo-friendly thrice-cooked sweet potatoes. First, we parboiled and shocked the sweet potatoes, followed by a short initial fry and a rest. After we fried our fish, we coated the chips with the remaining batter and rolled the battered chips in gluten-free panko mix. Our chips were marvelously crispy with a soft, sweet center.

Batter Ingredients

1.5 cups gluten-free flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp white sugar
1/4 tbsp salt
12 oz. beer
2 egg yolks

Mix the Batter

In large bowl combine flour, yeast, salt and sugar.
Whisk in enough beer to obtain thick consistency to the batter.
Whisk in the egg yolks.
Let the batter rest for 15-30 minutes to allow the yeast to work.

The Fry

As always, we pulled out our trusty Waring DF55 Professional Mini Stainless-Steel Deep Fryer and used a mixture of avocado and extra virgin olive oil. See, our articles on the health benefits of olive oil and deep fat frying.

Triple Cooked Fries

We tripled cooked our sweet potato fries. My Goodness! They were they tasty. We fried the potatoes three ways – straight, then dipped in the fish batter, and finally battered and dipped in gluten-free panko. Holy Cow! The panko-battered fries were unbelievable – crispy on the outside and soft and sweet on the inside.

See the Recipe