Add Club Soda To Your Fried Fish Batter And Thank Us Later

Homemade fried fish is a delicacy and should be eaten as such (preferably with some upgraded tartar sauce), with all the accolades going to whoever made the batter and then painstakingly stood over a pot of hot oil (or fryer), ensuring the fish crisped to perfection. If that person is you, then a round of applause, but did you really make that batter as light and crispy as you could have? Not if you didn't use club soda.

Mixing in club soda (which is related to, but quite different from seltzer and tonic water) to thin out your batter to a drippy pancake batter consistency is the go-to move for light, never heavy, fried fish. The carbonation in the club soda contains bubbles that do a good job integrating into the batter. When the batter is dropped into the hot oil, the effervescent bubbles that are within expand and pop, making the fish's coating airy and letting it get super crispy. You can actually use club soda in place of beer in beer-battered recipes, too, if you're trying to avoid alcohol.

There is more to fried fish than just an airy batter, though, and we've got some advice to make sure yours turns out great every time. It all starts with the temperature of the oil. Did you know your oil can actually be too hot? Foods fry best around 350 to 375 degrees Fahrenheit; any hotter (and combined with fish that isn't completely dry), and you could get major oil splatter, which is not only messy, it's unsafe. (Remember, there are ways to check your oil temperature without a thermometer.)

Dropping too many pieces of battered fish into the oil is a big no-no, too. When the oil is overcrowded it drops the temperature too low, leaving you with soggy batter and potentially undercooked protein. The key is to have your cooking space all set up before you start to fry, so you can work quickly in batches.

Finally, it's best if you don't add a lot of salt in the batter (though you may add salt and pepper directly on the fish, under the batter). This is because salt changes the frying oil, making it darker, changing its flavor, and actually causing it to break down. So hit your fish with a sprinkle of salt directly after you pull it from the fryer.