Beer Battered Fish & Chips | a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free recipe

  There's a school of thought that living gluten-free means that some foods are unequivocally out of the question; I admit that I believed it once too a long time ago.  I now know that gluten-free food doesn't have to be tasteless, boring and bland.  Since going gluten-free in June 2007 I have slowly built a cache of gluten-free recipes, that I love, enjoy and share with friends and family, I have just a few of them here.

As a general rule I don't use gluten-free flour mixes, simply because each flour behaves differently so we can't expect similar results in every recipe. Over the past four years I have spent a lot of time trying out various combinations, so whenever I try a new recipe I'm hopeful that I'll get it 'right'.  Good gluten-free takes a combination of flours and starches, so its always a balancing act, but in my eyes, its worth the effort.

This weekend, with the help of my loving Father (whom the boys call Gong gong) I took my understanding of gluten-free to a whole new level: we tackled the deep fryer, something I am not familiar with at all. Luckily my dad makes amazing fish and chips and is great with the fryer, so armed with his insight, my familiarity with the gluten-free flours and a spring salmon we decided to tackle gluten-free, and of course dairy and soy-free, Beer Battered Fish and Chips.

The results were amazing to say the least, light and crispy this fish could easily be mistaken for gluten-full (so the hubs told me). As far as I'm concerned, a successful gluten-free recipe for a dish that is generally 'off-limits' MUST be shared ASAP, so despite the half-written posts in my dashboard, I give you gluten-free beer battered fish and chips.  Go forth, deep fry and enjoy!

Beer Battered Fish and Chips

(Gluten-free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free)

Serves 2-3
can be doubled to serve 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup white rice flour
• 1/4 cup sweet (glutinous) rice flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup gluten-free beer
• Fish

Directions:

• Cut and prep your fish.
• Heat vegetable oil to 375 degrees.
• In a medium bowl whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
• Whisk the beer into the dry mix, watching for consistency at the end.  Add cornstarch/beer by the tsp to thicken/thin if needed.
• Carefully add the fish to the hot oil and cook until golden, a few minutes per side.
• Enjoy and try not to eat too much!

Gong gong's Advice for crispy beer-battered Fish and Chips

• For a light crispy batter, you need a thin batter.  The batter should coat your finger and have long drips rather than small droplets.
• When placing fish in the oil, submerge the majority of the fish, but do not drop it completely until the oil has started to bubble around the fish.
• We found fish cut approximately 1/2" x 2" x 4" cooked perfectly.