On Food and Becoming a Chef: Blumenthal's Vodka and Beer Battered Fish

Sorry for the delay in an update, I've been sick for the better part of the past week, and haven't gotten a chance at the office to update until now. Finally, here we go, Heston Blumenthal's recipe for Vodka and Beer Battered Fish. I found the recipe while reading an article by Harold McGee in the New York Times. Recipes like these really capture the essence of Molecular Gastronomy, how can we make something like fried fish better and more consistent by simply studying and finding out the reactions that occur when we combine certain ingredients or the way we cook them. The recipe came from Blumenthal's series of In Search of Perfection (books and tv) when he was playing around with different starches to use in his battered fish recipe.

As McGee writes, explaining why vodka enhances the dish:

"The key to the Fat Duck batter is the alcohol, which does a couple of very useful things. It dissolves some of the gluten proteins in the wheat flour, so no elastic network forms and the crust doesn’t get tough. (You’ll notice when you combine the ingredients that the mix becomes mushy rather than sticky.) Alcohol also reduces the amount of water that the starch granules can absorb, and boils off faster than water, so the batter dries out, crisps and browns quickly, before the delicate fish inside overcooks. The crispness lasts through the meal, and revives well the next day in a hot oven."

Below are some photos with the final results, and it came out amazing. I used Panga which is pretty common in Spain, even though its fished in Vietnam, frozen and then imported. But I haven't really seen it in the states. Next time, I obviously plan on using fresh fish, but considering the fish had been frozen it was really incredible. Really crispy on the outside, and amazingly moist and perfectly cooked in the middle. I had some extra batter left over, so I filleted some chicken breast into really thin slices, powdered them with some salt, pepper, paprika, and a little brown sugar then battered and fried them, and they came out very tasty and moist as well.