Name: Aaron Cuschieri's Winning Fish and chips
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 1 h 5 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 1.5 lbs cod fillets, patted dry and cut into 4 portions; 2 cups all-purpose flour, divided; 1 cup cornstarch; 2 tsp baking powder; 1.5 tsp kosher salt, plus more for finishing; 0.5 tsp white pepper; 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper; 1.25 cups cold lager beer; 2 tbsp Dijon mustard; 1 large egg yolk; 2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into 0.25-inch batons; Vegetable oil for frying, approximately 2 quarts; 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice; 1 tbsp fresh tarragon, minced

Aaron Cuschieri

Fish and chips

S20E12 British · 2019

Chef at Tapas 51 in Charlotte — featured in Charlotte Magazine after his win

Fish and chips is the dish that looks easy until you try it at home and end up with soggy batter and gray fish. The fix is two-fold: the batter has to be cold (ice in the beer, fridge for the flour) and the oil has to be screaming hot (375°F, no waver). Cold batter into hot oil is the violent thermodynamic event that makes the crust shatter the way it is supposed to.

Aaron Cuschieri runs The Dearborn in Chicago and was featured in Charlotte Magazine after this win. His batter was cold. His oil was hot. His fish, per the broadcast, was "flaky and bright." Bobby's, per the same broadcast, was "dense." Dense fish is fish that cooked from the outside in too slowly — which means the oil was not hot enough. Or the batter was not cold enough. Either way, the round was won in the prep, not the fry.