I think fish and ships from the van is about €13 / person so for our family of 4 that is nearly €60 for a fish and chips so your idea really has merit. What recipe do you use for the batter etc? and what is haddock in French and what is a good price / normal price for it???
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Dos d’eglefin…are the chunky bits. We find filets a bit thin, but sometimes get them is they are a decent size as cheaper. On promo we can find dos at 14.50 - 16.59€ /kg, but normally over €25. But I think fish is more expensive here as we are so far from the sea. Normal meal we find 130g a person does it, but if feeling ravenous then 150g+.
We do a beer batter, and Felicity Cloake is our guru
With only one basket, chips keep warm better than the fish which needs to be eaten straight away…
Edit…and once cool we strain the oil back into the bottle through a tea strainer, and reckon we can reuse it about 8-10 times.
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Oh just yum!!! I actually have some white fish in the freezer that I’m thinking may do it and it needs using!
Has anyone got one of those new Air Fryer things Aldi and Lidl have been doing about twice a year?
Are they any good for fish & chips?
My sister has one she uses for doing the kids dinner and she likes it. With 2 huge growing boys and both of us like our food as well she said that it would be a total pain as you can’t cook much so I’ve never looked into them!
I’ve been looking out for the Lidl one ever since I’ve heard lots of people saying how good they are (not sure when they are “due” in the shops as I haven’t seen them yet!) but the people that have liked them all seem to be single people or couples, not families needing large capacity 
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That’s interesting @toryroo - thank you! Looks like the jury’s still out as to whether or not they are a trendy gadget taking up kitchen cupboard space (we don’t have any kitchen cupboards yet) plus being a lockdown entertainment or whether they are genuinely useful 
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Exactly! My kitchen is quite small with limited storage so that has always been one of my reasons for not bothering! I think if I do ever try one I’ll pick up a 2nd hand ‘used twice’ one from LBC first!!
My last slowcooker was a huge Kenwood one that the lady had used once and realised it was waaay to big for just her and her husband! Paid less than half price.
And it was interesting the comment about trying to get a multi function unit with slow cooker ect all in one. Might have a look for that!
Yes, I thought that was interesting too!
I was once given an electric deep fat fryer as a present (very expensive!) I dutifully tried it a few times before deciding that it might well be a lot safer than my cheapo bought-in-France simplepan with a basket and lid but it was a reall faff, was impossible to clean, and took up too much space in the cupboard to be worthwhile. I binned it…
On the other hand, I bought a microwave rice cooker (also cheap) which my partner said was a useless waste-of-space gadget which he refused to use … until I gave him one of them for his own house and he found he was using it all the time and the rice wasn’t soggy and disgusting as he said mine was. We now don’t cook rice any other way. Howver, he is right in that most gadgets are not an improvement on simple cooking methods but a few are 
My rice cooker is a bit like this one -
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But if you work out how to cook rice using a specific pan then it works just fine, and saves a bit of space in your cupboards! So we measure both rice and water, and time it. Requires a measuring jug, and a timer. Both of which we have…
That’s exactly how my partner always cooked it but for some reason it always goes wrong for me 
I’ve now given up and my simple steamer works reliably in the microwave so I’m sticking with it! I must say that the number of electric kitchen gadgets I now have is minimal - mixer, blender and microwave are about it. I did have a slow cooker but it’s still in a box in the barn after my move
You wash the rice, whatever quantity, put it in a pan, put your index fingertip vertically on the top of the rice, add water up to the nearest joint. Boil it with a lid on until you see holes in the surface (10 minutes) then put the lid back on and turn the heat off. That is it.
Or you just put it in an electric rice cooker thus saving space on your cooker. But I’m not European when it comes to rice so what suits me may not suit you.
Pretty similar, but with jug rather than knobbly finger…way back when I did a cookery day with Madhuur Jaffrey, so what’s good enough for her works fine for me.
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I do it the way my Viêt greatgranny showed me 
but my parents were rice cooker users as well, they lived in Japan & Hong Kong in the 60s.
Tory, One of the best things I have bought for the kitchen is one of the new pressure multi cookers, I do all our meat, rice, soups etc in it, very quick and the meat is supper tender though I sometimes finish it off in the over.
I was a bit dubious at first but being able to cook everything right out of the freezer is a big bonus for me, especially if friends turn up unexpectedly and I need to cook something like chicken or a beef joint quickly, gammon joints done in cola are just superb.
I have an instant pot and a amazon basic 5.5L and there isn’t much to choose between them, so I would go for the cheaper option.
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Colin, that is the sort of thing I’ve been looking at. I REALLY love(d - it died) my slow cooker and some of them also have that option - do either of yours??
Both have the slow cooker option, I don’t use our stand alone slow cooker anymore.
5 chicken breasts today straight from the freezer, 11 min, 1kg beef roast 70 min, cooking times below.
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