Fish and Chips

One of the channels on TV that I enjoy watching is the Food Network. I often get ideas for different restaurants I could create, the menu, decor, everything. Drive-in's Diners and Dives is one of the worst shows for giving me ideas. Having my very own business that is a restaurant is appealing to me. You can be very creative in the industry if you are passionate about it. I have always liked cooking and been very creative and adventurous with recipes. Some of my favorite cooking shows are the competitions, like Top Chef, Next Network Star, Chopped, Iron Chef, Restaurant Wars, Dither Party Wars, Hells Kitchen and the new masterchef. I also like the reality ones, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Impossible, Restaurant Makeover, Opening Soon, and The Opener.
A lot of times on the challenges I find myself coming up with ideas different from most of the contestants and wondering if I could have one. On one of the competition shows recently there was a challenge with salmon. Now the contestants are usually rewarded for originality, simplicity, and unique ways to showcase the ingredient. With the salmon everybody was doing the usual pan frying, roasting, or steaming. I thought to myself something that would stand out is using salmon and making fish and chips. Instead of the usual white fish beer batter the salmon and deep fry it. Looking online I discovered it wasn't so far-fetched an idea and saw many references of it being done. I was also thinking how to make it even more of a standout and not just a piece of fish and some fries. The idea came to me to pair it with some deluxe poutine, cheesy gravy potato with bacon and mushrooms.. I have included my creations below.


Delicious Deep Fried Salmon Fish and Chips
Ingredients:
Fries
A cup of all purpose flour
A few nice salmon fillets
A can or bottle of dark beer
An egg (beaten)
1 pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tsp Salt and pepper
Oil for deep frying.

Directions:
Mix flour with salt and pepper and spice. Add egg. Add beer slowly while stirring until batter has a nice thick and creamy texture. You won’t need the entire beer, just drink the rest.
Cut salmon fillets into reasonable sized chunks. Dust with flour.
Heat the oil to around 375 degrees. Don’t worry, you don’t need a thermometer, Just heat it until it seems good and drop some batter into the oil to test it.
Dip fillet chunks into battery liquor, and quickly place into frying oil. Don’t cook more than 3 at once. Depending on how thick your fish is, it will take between 5-10 minutes to cook.
Remove with a slotted spoon, drain oil on paper towel.
Serve with pickles and french fries. Even better might be to try and coat the pickles and deep fry them. Also replacing the french fries with deluxe poutine.

Poutine à la Laval
Ingredients:
4 Potatoes
6 mushrooms
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
Miscellaneous spices (personal preference)
¼ cup oil and ¼ cup white flour
1 liter vegetable oil
2 cups vegetable stock
cheese Kurds (as much as desired)
gravy
bacon bits
paper towel

Directions:
Slice potatoes into fries. Bathe them in cold water for at least an hour. Let dry completely. You may prefer to give them a coating before deep-frying.
Fry the bacon until crisp. Set aside on paper towel.
Dice onion, mushrooms and garlic, sauté in an oiled frying pan. Set aside.
Make a roux by mixing oil and flour. Heat it up slowly on a medium pot, and then add cooked mushrooms, onion and garlic. Add vegetable stock, followed by those pesky spices. Let simmer and thicken while cooking your fries.
Heat vegetable oil in a big pot or wok and dump fries in. Cook for 8 minutes, then pull them out and let them degrease on a paper towel-covered plate. Reheat oil, and put the fries back in for 2-3 minutes, to double fry. Pull the fries out once more, this time placing them into a salt and peppered container. Shake that around until your fries are covered in spicy goodness.
Serve fries covered cheese Kurds and then drenched in the hot gravy. Crumble the bacon on top.