Cook's Country

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- I think I'm home I think I'm home How nice to look at you again Along the road Along the road Anytime you want me You can find me living right between your eyes, yeah Oh, I think I'm home Oh, I think I'm home -Today on "Cook's Country," Ashley makes Bridget perfect fish and chips... Jack challenges Julia to a tasting of hamburger buns... and Christie makes Julia the ultimate shrimp burgers. That's all right here on "Cook's Country." -A chippy is a fish-and-chips shop, and the first one dates back to the 1860s, in England. -But it wasn't until after World War II that fish and chips caught on here in the States. -While the meal was sold at clam shacks and fish markets, it took an English actor to make it a national hit. -In 1969, Arthur Treacher, whom you might remember as Constable Jones in the movie "Marry Poppins," opened his first namesake fish-and-chip restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. -Treacher ran cheeky ads in local papers with funny headlines like "Arthur Treacher Brings All-American Dish Back to its Birthplace," and it was always followed by the name of each local town. -By the late 1970s, there were about 800 Arthur Treacher's, which inspired restaurants across the country to add fish and chips to their menus. -Well, today we're going into the kitchen with Ashley, who's got a fool-proof, streamlined version of fish and chips that you can make at home. So, I've stopped making fish and chips at home, and that's because a pub can do a much better job than I can. They have that specialized equipment, the fryer with two baskets, so you can fry fish and chips at the same time and serve them nice and hot, but at home, usually one gets cold while it's waiting on the other. But Ashley's here. She's gonna show us how we can have it all -- hot fish and crisp chips all at the same time. -All at the same time. -All right. -As you said, I mean, you know, when you're driving home from work, you're not usually thinking "Well, tonight I'm gonna whip up a little batch of fish and chips." -It's not a last-minute dinner. -No, it's not. But, after I've shown you how easy this recipe is, you will be starting to think like that on your way home. So, let's get started with the batter. Here we have 1 cup of all-purpose flour. And here is 1 cup of corn starch. Now, the combination of these two things gave us the color and the texture of the batter we were looking for. It's really nice and light and beautiful golden brown. And for a little seasoning, we have 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt. And for lift, we have 1 teaspoon of baking powder. So, let's add a little beer to this batter. This is a light-bodied American lager, and I have 1 1/2 cups of it. Now, the beer does a few different things for us in this batter. It provides some seasoning here, it provides a little bit of sweetness, it provides some acidity which is always welcome with some fried food, and also, if you don't cook with beer or alcohol, no fear. You can use simple seltzer water. Plain water doesn't do the trick, unfortunately. -So it's more the carbonation is essential, but the beer adds additional flavor. -Exactly. -And benefit. -I'm gonna whisk this until nice and smooth. I'm gonna cover this with some plastic wrap, and before I do anything with this, let's move on down to the fish. -Sounds good. -Okay. So, here we are gonna be using some cod fish, but if you can't find any cod, halibut or haddock will also do. We have two pounds, skinless filet, of cod, which I've cut into two pieces. I'm gonna cut this into eight pieces, and I want them to be about four ounces each. So first, cut these in half, like that, and then I'll cut this right down the middle. Cut the fish into even-sized pieces. Everything's gonna cook at the same rate. Before I season it with salt and pepper, I'm gonna pat these dry with some paper towels so that the seasoning adheres nicely. Season it nicely with some salt and pepper. If you season it from up high, it really distributes nicely over any protein that you're working with. Transfer the seasoned fish to a nice large plate. I'm gonna go wash my hands, and then we're gonna put that batter and the fish into the refrigerator. -Okay. -All right. So, we have got the fish covered for our fish and chips. Now let's move on to the chips. For the potatoes, I chose Yukon Gold potatoes 'cause of their moderate starch level. So first, when you're working with any type of round vegetable, it's always best to flatten all of the sides, and you can do so by trimming one quarter inch off of each rounded side. Now that I have all those rounded pieces squared off, I'm gonna cut this into quarter-inch-thick planks. So using my trusty ruler here. Now I have a good idea of what a quarter inch looks like, so I'll continue to work my way through the potato. I would recommend that you stack just one on top of another. Just start with about two at this stage. -Two-level stack. -I'm gonna cut these into quarter-inch-thick fries. -Well, Ashley mentioned a minute ago that she chose Yukon Golds because they were a medium starch potato. Now, the reason that russets were out of the game here is that they are very starchy, and the rule of thumb is, the more starchy the potato is, the more apt it is to become super tender and fall apart. We want sturdy but still tender chips here, so that's why Yukon Golds were the perfect choice for us. -Let's get frying. -All right. -Okay. Here we are going to do what's called a cold-fry method. So, if you notice, a lot of times when you cut potatoes, you put them in water to keep them from oxidizing and changing color. Now, I didn't do that with this. I want the starches to stay in the potatoes. -Okay. -I'm gonna add these potatoes to the cold peanut oil. This is peanut oil. I have 8 cups total here. Put these over high heat. And I'm not going to touch anything in here. It's gonna take about seven minutes to get to a rolling boil, and then I'm gonna cook it at that boil for an additional 15 minutes. The potatoes after that are going to be a little limp, and the exteriors will be beginning to firm. Now, it's been seven minutes and this is what I meant for the rolling boil. -That's boiling. -That's boiling. So again, I'm not going to touch these potatoes and I'm gonna continue to cook them at this high-level heat for an additional 15 minutes. -Okay, 22 minutes total has passed. Now, I'm going to go in using these tongs and just give a gentle stir, just to prevent any of these from sticking together, especially at the bottom of the pot because some do tend to stick there. I'm going to continue to boil these for four minutes, until they are just golden brown. -All right. Those chips look right nice. -They sure do. Okay. So, I'm gonna use this spider here, but a slotted spoon also does the trick. -Oh, those are beautiful. -Now, normally when French fries or any other kind of fried type of food comes out of something like the oil, my first instinct is to season it with salt, but these are not completely done at this point. Just get any large pieces that were a little stubborn and wanted to stay behind out of there. Now, that looks great. I'm gonna set this aside. Let's batter the fish. Now, I'm gonna add all of it together. Just make sure everything is covered here. All right. Now, before I do anything, I'm gonna go wash my hands. -Sounds good. -All right. So, I am gonna check my oil temperature here. Now, I need it to come back to 375 degrees before I add the fish. All right. Time to get frying. Now, I'm gonna do two batches here, and using this fork... -That's a beautiful, thick batter. -Really thickened up nicely in the fridge. -Mm-hmm. -I'm gonna drag it across the oil, drop it in... drag it across the oil... And what that does is it really seals the batter in nicely so you're not gonna have a lot of raggedy edges. -Now, it was important for Ashley to bring that oil temperature back up to 375. If she cooked the fish at a lower temperature, the outside, well, it would've been nice and darkly colored, but the inside of the fish would still be underdone. So 375 is key. -It's key. So, I'm gonna monitor the temperature of the oil, and I want to make sure that they're between 350 and 375 degrees. -Okay. -And I'm gonna cook this for four minutes on each side, eight minutes total. All right, this second batch is ready to come out of that oil. Oh, yeah. -Super, super crispy. Beautiful. You know, I love really good pub fish and chips. I have yet to see fish and chips as good as these. -All right, I'm gonna hit this fish with a little bit of salt. -Season it now. -Season it now. I'm gonna bring the oil temperature back up to 375 degrees, and we are almost done. All we need to do is just simply reheat those French fries. -Usually I would tell you to reuse the cooking oil after you're done with our fish-and-chips recipe, but in this case, no, you do want to get rid of it. Once you cook fish in oil, it really gives off its flavor. So if you go to make doughnuts in there, well, you're gonna get fish-flavored doughnuts. -Fish doughnuts. -Mmm. Well, that didn't take long at all for the oil to come back up to temp. -Not at all. -All right. -All right, give this a little stir... and one minute. See you guys soon. Okay, that was a long minute. -

Chuckles

-Wow. -That was a literal minute, I have to say. These look beautiful. -Oh, man. -Let me check on that fish. -How it's doing? -Still hot. -Ooh. Good. -That's great. -I'm gonna season them with a little bit of salt. May I? -Please do. -Okay. I'm so excited for this. My mouth is watering. -Me too. -Here we have some homemade tartar sauce. -And you can get our recipe for our tartar sauce on our website, CooksCountry.com. -I love a little lemon. -It's super crispy. Mmm. That batter is so light. -So light. -And flaky. But, it still has some heft to it. You know, it's not one of these batters that you make it so light. It's just this gossamer thin, almost a veneer. We wanted a little bit more structure, though, and you gave it to us. -And the baking powder, if you could see, really helped provide a little bit of lift in there. -Well, I'm putting the fork and knife down... -Yeah. -...to go in for the chips. -Oh, right. -They're actually kind of creamy inside. Really nice shell on the outside. Perfectly cooked through. -Mmm. -Gorgeous color. Excellent job. -Thank you. -Make an ultra-light batter with flour, corn starch, baking powder, and beer, and season large pieces of cod with salt and pepper. For the chips, start Yukon Gold potatoes and cold peanut oil, and cook until just shy of done. Remove the chips, then batter and fry the fish until deep brown. Return the chips to the oil for one minute to brown and crisp, and serve all with lemon and tartar sauce. It can be done. So, from "Cook's Country," pour a pint for yourself and enjoy fish and chips. With a wee chippy. -Aw. Right back at 'cha. -

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Cheers and applause

-So, behind every great hamburger is a great hamburger bun, and today Jack's gonna tell us which bun is best. -Julia, this is a very easy tasting. -Where's the beef? -Yeah, I was gonna say, these are very plain. So, these are three of the four best-selling brands in the country. -Oh, okay. -A couple things I want you to play attention to. -Mm-hmm. -Size is actually pretty important. You might imagine that bigger buns do a better job of holding on to the burger, and people didn't like it when the patty was hanging over the side. -Oh, really? -The second thing is the size of the bottom bun. -Mm-hmm. -'Cause the thinner it is, the soggier it's gonna get. -Yeah, that I've noticed at home. -So, a couple things that are interesting. Usually almost every tasting we do, the more salt something has, the better it will do. -Mm-hmm. -This was an exception. -Mm. -We actually preferred the brands with the least amount of sodium, and the theory there is that the burger is so salty that you wanted a nice contrast, and our winner actually has more sugar. So it counteracts with the saltiness of the burger. -Mm-hmm. -We were looking for things that could hold the patty but that were also light and fluffy and kind of nice to eat. I will say, there wasn't a bad bun here. -Mnh-mnh. -You would not reject a hamburger that was put on any of these buns, but there are some differences. So, anything that you're noticing here? -I know what this one is, because this is the one I buy at home. I recognize its color, and I recognize the sweetness. So this is by far my favorite. -Are you sure about that? I love how Julia has really no confidence whatsoever in this whole segment. -Yeah, no, that's my bun, right there. -Okay. -Now, between these two, they're both pretty good. This one, actually, the bottom felt a little bit thin and a little bit like it would moosh out to nothing under a burger, and the top was very thick. It tasted fine. This one had a slightly better flavor, and I thought it had a slightly more chew on the bottom. This one almost turned to paste in my mouth as I was eating it. I didn't like that. So... second favorite, but third favorite. Third favorite's not far behind. -All right. So, you want the good news or the bad news? -Always the good news. -Well, the good news is you got them all totally right. The bad news is, I didn't win.

Both laugh

-Bad news for you. So, this is the winner. -This is the winner. This is Martin's. -Martin's. Yes. -Half of the studio audience chose this as their favorite. This is a New England product that's available in the Eastern half of the country. It's made with potato flakes, milk, and butter. -Mm-hmm. -I.E., it's made basically with mashed potatoes. -Yeah. It's very distinctive. -Yeah, even though it's the second best-selling brand in the country, out West you cannot get this. -Oh, it's an East Coast thing. -It's an East Coast thing. So for the people who live on the West Coast, this is our runner up, Pepperidge Farm. It is not made with potato flakes, but it's a very nice bun. It is the biggest, so the widest. -Yeah, it was the biggest. -It does a nice job of holding that patty. -All right. And this one, not bad but not my favorite. -Yeah, the Ball Park was fine. It was a little on the small side. Half of the studio audience, that was their favorite, was the Ball Park, but I didn't give them the hint about size, so they were just tasting it. And it's fine. -It's good. -It's just small. -Yeah. So, there you have it. If you're from the East Coast, go for Martin's Sandwich Potato Rolls at $3.69, but if you're on the West Coast, go for Pepperidge Farm White Hamburger Buns.

Cheers and applause

Maine owns the lobster roll, and Maryland is the land of crab cakes. But, down in South Carolina, well, that's the home of the shrimp burger. Now, we went down there and tasted burgers up and down the coast, and they were all pretty good, but we fell in love with the one from the Shrimp Shack, out in Beaufort, so we used that as a model for our own recipe. -That's right. These are major shrimp burgers. They are full of shrimp, shrimp, and more shrimp. You don't taste bready fillers. They don't even add a lot of spices to them -- no Old Bay... just shrimp. -Shrimp at its finest. -Of course, at the Shrimp Shack, they've got deep-fryers going all the time, so they get a nice, crisp crust. But, these are so easy, and they're so good, that we wanted to make them easier to make, without such a mess, without such a fuss, and in the skillet. -Right, and not have to deal with all that leftover fry oil. -Right. We started thinking about bread crumbs. How could we get that same crisp crust without frying? Panko are our favorite, 'cause they're so light and crispy. The problem was, those flaky bits made them seem more like crab cakes. -Yeah. -And that's not what we were looking for. So our solution was to take them and pulverize them in the food processor. So, I've got a cup of panko. I'm just gonna pulse these, about 15 times, until they're nice and fine and dredgable. Just a couple more for good measure. Well, let's check these. So as you can see, it's a much finer grain now -- not so shardy. -Yeah. Yeah, because panko has a pretty iconic texture with those nice flakes. -So, I'm just gonna transfer these to a shallow dish so I'll have a good space to do my dredging, and I'm gonna use this again. So, we needed to get these burgers to stick together, but we already knew that bready fillers were out. -Right. -So we found that the more we processed the shrimp, the stickier it got. -Mm-hmm. -And so ultimately, we really didn't need to add much more than a little bit of mayo to help them stick together. -Nice. -So, I'm gonna take about a cup of my shrimp. I have 1 1/4 pounds all together. These are 26-30 shrimp, so they're large. They're peeled and de-veined and we took the tails off, and... my mayonnaise. -That's not a lot of mayonnaise. -It's only two tablespoons. -Wow. -This little bit of mayonnaise adds some extra flavor. it adds a little richness, because these are pretty lean. -Mm-hmm. -I also have a 1/4 teaspoon of pepper, 1/8 teaspoon of salt, and 1/8 teaspoon of cayenne. -Oh-ho-ho-ho! -That's just gonna give it a little boost, a little something something, but it's not gonna make them spicy. Now, I'm going to pulse these about eight times. I want to get it pretty finely ground so that we'll get that sticking power. So, you can see it's pretty finely ground. -Yeah. -I'm just gonna take my spatula and wipe down the bowl a little bit. It's pretty pasty. -Mm-hmm. -But, we don't want the shrimp burgers to be shrimp-paste burgers. We like the combination of bigger chunks and the finer-ground bits. And we'll pulse this but not quite as many times. -So, some smaller pieces and some bigger pieces gives you the sticking power and some good texture. -Mm-hmm. Just about four times. I just want to make sure that any big pieces are broken up. But you still want to be able to get a nice, clean bite. -Mm-hmm. You want to know what you're eating in a shrimp burger. You want to see the shrimp. Well, that looks perfect. -Yep. -No big pieces of shrimp that'll stick out, but they're still recognizable. -I'm gonna transfer this to a bowl for the last step, to get any little bits of salt or cayenne or anything, all the nooks and crannies. That's great. So, the last ingredient that we're adding is a little bit of scallions. -Oh, okay. -So, three scallions. I've chopped these fine. The reason that we don't add it in the food processor, is it just really pulverizes the scallions, and we want it to have a little texture, we wanted them to still have a fresh taste, and we didn't want green shrimp burgers. Speckles of green are nice, but Incredible Hulk burgers are less fun. So, I want to make four burgers here. -Mm-hmm. -I have a half-cup measure. So I'll transfer them to that, to make sure they're pretty even. Now I'm just gonna shape these into patties. So they should each be about 3 1/2 inches in diameter, but the really important thing is the thickness, because we want to make sure that the shrimp is cooked all the way through. -Mm-hmm. -We're looking for 3/4 of an inch. The really nice thing about these is that you don't have to refrigerate them. -Wow. -You don't have to chill them. They're so sticky that they're really ready to go as soon as you have them shaped and dredged. -That's pretty unusual for a patty or a burger like this. It also makes them really easy for a Tuesday night. You can make them ahead, but you don't have to. -How far ahead can you make them? -I've made them about a day ahead. -Ah. -But it is time to dredge. So I have my panko all ready to go. We ground the panko so fine that we're really able to get a nice, even distribution. So we have a real thin layer. Again, you don't want bready. We want crispy. So, I'm just gonna keep dredging my shrimp burgers, wash my hands, and then we'll come and make some tartar sauce. -Sounds good. -So, the burgers are all ready to go. I just want to heat up my oil. -Now, that's not a lot of oil, considering that, at the Shrimp Shack, they deep fry them. -That's right. It's only 3 tablespoons of oil. -Ooh, I like that. -But we're using a non-stick pan, and that's why we were able to use so little oil. We want it nice and crisp but not greasy. I have it over medium heat. -Mm-hmm. -You want to let the oil come to a shimmer. Let's work on the tartar sauce. -I love a good tartar sauce. -Well, we needed something to dress up the bun. So, I have 3/4 cup of mayonnaise. I'm also gonna add 3 tablespoons of dill pickle, that I've chopped fine, plus a teaspoon of the brine. A small shallot that I've minced. It'll give us a little bit of... -Wiggle. -Little... I keep wiggling. I'm so excited. -I like it. -I also have a tablespoon of capers, that's I've rinsed really well and then chopped fine. The briny saltiness is really gonna help make that sweetness in the shrimp pop. And 1/4 teaspoon of pepper. We do not need to add any more salt. -Right. Thanks to the pickles. -Right. We have plenty to go around. So I'll just mix this together. Pretty easy. -That is easy. And it tastes so much better than anything you can find at the store. -It's really nice and fresh tasting, with a little bit of texture, too. We'll just let this hang out a little bit while we cook the burgers. -Okay. -And it looks like we got a nice shimmer coming on here. I'm gonna pop the burgers in. I'm just gonna fry these until they're a nice golden brown. That's only gonna take about three to five minutes. Now, if you have two spatulas, use them. -You want a flipper and a catcher. -Not have them kind of land on their side. -Mm-hmm. -That's what we're looking for. Nice golden-brown color. So, we'll let these cook for another three to five minutes, and then we'll temp them to make sure they're done. It's been about four minutes, so I'm gonna temp these but I want to go in through this side... -Mm-hmm. -...to get a really accurate measurement, so I'm just gonna lift it up a little bit, and I'm looking for a temperature between 140 and 145. Just keep in mind -- because we do have some big chunks of shrimp and smaller bits of shrimp, it's not a bad idea to check it in... -Mm-hmm. -...more than one place. So they're all done. The last thing to do is to just let them sit on some paper towels, just for a couple seconds. I'll just give these a quick flip. I think we're ready. -All right. I'm hungry. -All right. So, just put a little tartar sauce on the bun, and we'll slide this shrimp burger on top and a little extra sauce. We're not gonna load these up with a lot of things. -Nope. -Just a little crisp Bibb lettuce. -Mmm. -A little color, a little extra crisp crunch. -Now that's a shrimp burger. -

Laughs

-Mmm. That's good. -They stay really juicy. -Yeah, they're really juicy, and they taste like shrimp, with just a few other flavors around the fringes, but it's really all about the shrimp. And the texture. I like getting some of those bigger pieces of shrimp. -Mm-hmm. And the little bit of the scallion? -Mm-hmm. Now I know why you do the shrimp-burger wiggle. -I don't wiggle for everything. -

Laughs

To make your own Beaufort-style shrimp burger, start by pulverizing panko in the food processor. For the burger, process some of the shrimp finely, to act as a binder, but chop the rest of the shrimp coarsely so that the burgers have some texture. After shaping, coating, and sauting the burgers, serve them on a bun with homemade tartar sauce. So, from "Cook's Country," South Carolina Shrimp Burgers. You can find this recipe and all the recipes from this season, along with our tastings, testings, and select episodes at our website, CooksCountry.com. -Let us help with dinner tonight. Visit our website anytime for access to this season's recipes, taste tests, and equipment ratings. Or to watch current-season episodes, log on to cookscountry.com.