Beer Battered Fish and Chips (by Biggs)

I had half a bottle of tartar sauce burning a hole in my pocket and the only thing I could think to serve it with was some fish and chips. I get a bit nervous at the thought of cooking fish, particularly battering fish but if you're going to fail you best have some tartar sauce to back it up.

I was at the markets this morning for a coffee on the river with some friends and took the opportunity to visit the fishmonger. I was specifically looking for whiting but there were nice little boxes of gar for $5 so I went with that. I asked my friend how many fillets would be appropriate for two big eaters and he suggested 8 which I thought seemed reasonable. 15 fillets was definitely too many.

There's no batter option than a beer batter so I then had to take myself up to the bottle-o this afternoon (because I'd already drunk all the beer from yesterday's visit) to source the second secret ingredient.

I was really happy with the batter and the fry on the fish and was really happy that at the last minute I remembered I had bought lemon to go with dinner.

I was a little disappointed that, in the end, there turned out to be only about a tablespoon of tartar sauce left....especially given we have piles and piles of fish left to eat.