Cut thick for the fryer
HADDOCK, COD OR HALIBUT, SKINNED AND PIN-BONED BY HAND. CUT AT A THICKNESS THAT HOLDS TOGETHER IN HOT FAT.
The three fish
What each one does in hot fat
Fish flesh is blocks of muscle held apart by thin sheets of collagen. Those sheets are what you see as flakes, and heat dissolves them. How a fish behaves in a fryer comes down to how cohesive its flakes are and how thick it is cut.
Haddock
A finer, tighter flake than cod and a little sweeter. The tight flake is what holds a batter together instead of sliding out of it. The fish to start with if you have not fried at home before.
Cod
Large, soft, distinct flakes and a thicker loin. Cod is the fish every other white fish gets described against, which is why it reads as the default. Thicker means a minute longer in the fat.
Halibut
Dense, lean and tightly bound. Cut as a steak it stays whole where a thin fillet would slide apart. No chip shop will fry a fish at £67 a kilo. The risk with halibut is the opposite one, going dry, so cut it thick and give it less time.
The cut
Skinned and pin-boned by hand
Pin bones are the fine bones that angle off the vertebrae and run down the top third of a round-fish fillet. They do not dissolve in cooking and there is no machine that takes them out. Each one is pulled by hand with pliers, one at a time.
Skin is structure. It holds flesh together in a pan and stops a thin fillet shredding, so it stays on for pan work. For batter it comes off and the fillet goes in bare.
We cut the thick loin away from the thin tail rather than sell them as one piece. Even thickness cooks evenly. The tail cooks in half the time, which is where the fish fingers come from.
Filleting, pin-boning and skinning are free.
In the box
What we pack around the fish
Cut to order at the counter and priced by weight. The chips are yours to cut.
The fish
Haddock, cod or halibut. Skinned, pin-boned, 225g a head.
Batter mix
200g, weighed to the fish in your box. Cold water and nothing else.
Tartare sauce
200g of ours, with capers and cornichons through it.
Mushy peas
300g.
Sea salt
Cornish flakes, 100g.
Malt vinegar
150ml.
A lemon
One Amalfi lemon.
Choose the fish
Order your box
Cut to order, filleting free
Next-day delivery, order by 1pm
Collect in Barnes with the potatoes
In the pan
Three things go wrong at home
Cold oil. Batter needs 180C to set before it soaks. Below that it drinks the fat. Use a thermometer and fry two pieces at a time so the temperature holds.
Chips fried once. One fry cannot both soften the inside and build a crust. 140C until soft and still pale, a rest, then 190C for two or three minutes to colour.
A cold first batch. Fry the fish while the chips rest between their two fryings. Everything lands together.
Salt the second it leaves the fat, while the surface is still wet enough to hold it.
For children
A piece of fillet, crumbed
The thin tail of a fillet cooks in half the time the loin does, so the two get cut apart at the counter. The tail becomes these. Floured, egg washed, rolled in panko by hand and frozen in eights at the shop.
Cod, haddock or hake, depending on what is being cut that week. The species is named on the pack.
At the counter
Collect the box and the potatoes come with it
There is a greengrocer next door to us on Barnes High Street. Collect your box from the counter and we put a kilo of their floury potatoes in it, the sort that fluff inside and take a second fry. A waxy potato will not.
Delivered boxes come without them. A kilo of potatoes doubles the weight of the parcel to carry about a pound of goods, and a courier is a poor way to buy a potato. Come in for them, and while you are here you can tell us how you want the fish cut.
Before you order
The details
Haddock if you have not fried fish at home before, because its tight flake forgives you. Cod if you want a larger flake and a thicker piece. Halibut if you want the fish itself to be the point, and cut it thick.
For cod or haddock we put in pollack or hake and cut it thicker, because both are softer and break more readily. For halibut, turbot, which is firm and holds the same way. Same price or better, and we write the change on the packing note.
225g a head. A box for two carries 450g and a box for four carries 900g. Everything is priced by weight.
Skinned and pin-boned by hand at the counter, and cut to order. Filleting, pin-boning and skinning cost nothing. Tell us anything else you want doing on the order form.
The batter mix contains wheat and the tartare contains egg. Full ingredients are printed on every pack and repeated on the packing note inside the box.
Order by 1pm for next-day delivery across the UK, free over £60. Collect in Barnes the same day, usually about two hours, and the potatoes come with it.
Order
Choose the fish first
Pick the fish and how many are eating. Order by 1pm for next-day UK delivery, or collect in Barnes in about two hours and take the potatoes with you.
