Yeah, you heard right: Tempura-Style Fish & Chips.

Chris and Elle decided that this edition of #GoJunkFood should showcase Fish and Chips. Um, okay. You guys know that I don’t like fish, right? Tuna from a can and the occasional Mrs. Paul’s fish stick, notwithstanding. But I have eaten the odd Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips meal once in a great while, and admit that I enjoyed them.

So, what am I doing here? I can cook fish like nobody’s business. Just ask my husband. M can’t figure it out: “I don’t get it – this is so good and you won’t even taste it!” In fact, I made him buy the fish. And I thought I’d do something a little different than the heavily battered English-style and – to paraphrase The Vapors – I thought I’d turn it Japanese.

With a rice flour batter and sliced sweet potatoes, I made a not-so-traditional Asian-ish version of Fish and Chips, suitable even for those with gluten-free diet requirements:

Tempura-Style Fish & Chips
(serves 2 – can be doubled)

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 lb. total)
1-1/2 cups rice flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. wasabi powder
1-1/4 cups seltzer or “fizzy” mineral water
2 5 oz. cod or other firm white fish fillets
enough peanut or canola oil to deep-fry preferably in a wok or (wok-shaped pan)

Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them into rounds about 1/4″ thick. Put the slices in a pot of boiling salted water and cook for 2 minutes. Drain immediately and run cold water over them to stop the cooking, and allow to drain again.

In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients to combine thoroughly. Slowly whisk in the seltzer (it should foam up a bit, briefly) till the batter comes together. It should be a bit thinner than pancake batter.

Heat the oil in the wok or deep pan, until a drop of batter sizzles when it hits the oil. Slide several of the sweet potato slices into the batter to coat well and slip gently into the hot oil. You can cook about 6 or 7 slices at a time. Fry for about 2 minutes and turn them over with a slotted spoon or spider (you know, that long-handled thing with the wire basket end? that you didn’t know what to do with? yeah, that thing.). Drain on paper towels and remove to a rack and place in the oven, set to warm, while cooking the fish.

When all of the sweet potato slices have been fried, repeat the batter and fry procedure with your fish fillets. They should cook for about 6-7 minutes or till golden brown, turning them over about half-way through.

Mix up a quick little dipping sauce with 1/2 cup soy sauce (or shoyu), 1/4 tsp. minced ginger, 1/4 tsp. wasabi powder, and 1/4 cup honey, all whisked together in a small bowl (or even the measuring cup!).

And speaking of Asian-style, wait till you see what’s in store next month for #GoJunkFood!

Dinner by tangent. I’ll admit it. I was desperate for something to make for dinner that I could write about.

I happened to be surfing Twitter when I noticed that Mark Bittman will be at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in a week from now, talking about and reading from his new book, The Food Matters Cookbook. I follow Mark Bittman on Twitter (no, he doesn’t follow me – I’m one in 70,000+ for pity’s sake!), so I checked his Twitter stream, followed a link to his blog, and discovered that “Dinner With Bittman” was Bean and Potato Gratin from his How to Cook Everything.

Sounded right up my alley – especially since I had (almost) everything in my pantry. Here’s my variation:

Bean & Sweet Potato Gratin
(makes 2 dinner portions; 4 side dish portions)

1 15 oz. can white beans (I used Great Northern)
1 tsp. ground thyme (divided)
salt & pepper
approx. 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1-1/2 lbs)
1/2 cup vegetable stock
3 Tbs. butter (divided)

Preheat the oven to 325º F.

Drain the beans and spread them in the bottom of a 1 quart baking dish. Season with 1/2 tsp. of ground thyme, salt and pepper lightly, and mix thoroughly.

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut in half, lengthwise, then slice them thinly into half rounds. Arrange the slices on top of the beans, overlapping them.

Add the vegetable stock to the dish, sprinkle with the remaining thyme, salt and pepper, and dot the top with half the butter. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Uncover the dish, dot with the remaining butter, and bake uncovered for another 45 minutes.

*Notes:

The original recipe is made with “starchy white or all-purpose potatoes,” called for 1 cup of stock (chicken, vegetable or plain water), and is supposed to reduce to a rich glaze. That didn’t happen here. Either there was too much liquid, or the sweet potatoes aren’t starchy enough. In future, I will cut the liquid by half, and reflected that reduced amount here in my recipe.

All in all, we really liked this with the sweet potatoes. It was very colorful and the texture contrast of the sweet potato/bean combination was brighter and more flavorful than it would have been with the white potatoes.

Draw your own conclusions – try Mark Bittman’s Bean and Potato Gratin, then try this variation. Playing with your food is fun!