Being outside is no reason you can’t dine like you’re in a four-star restaurant. Level up your campfire cooking game with Teddy Cosco’s cast iron Fish and Chips recipe. He recently made this beer-battered fish and chips for his birthday. He recommends using a double-fry technique on the potato to maximize the fluffy interior and crispy exterior of a chip. Pro tip: Teddy used the Leatherman FREE® K2, but you can check out a few more multi-tools that work great at the campsite.  

Fish & Chips Recipe

Ingredients

Starchy potato, e.g. Russet

Kosher salt

Cooking oil (with a high smoke point)

Lemon

4oz halibut fillets

6-pack beers (1 for fish, 2 for drinking, 3 for sharing)

Fish batter

Tartar Sauce Recipe

Mayo

Parsley

Wholegrain mustard

Spicy pickled green beans 

Gear

Cast iron skillet

Cutting board

Leatherman FREE® K2

Instructions

After slicing up some thick chips with my trusty FREE® K2, I fry them up in a cast iron pan on low-medium heat with a good quantity of oil. This first fry is intended to cook the chips through but not actually crisp them up. Be careful not to overcrowd the cast iron, and cook them in batches, setting them aside once the chips have cooked through. 

Next, crank the heat up to get the skillet ripping hot. This second fry is intended to crisp them up. Once again, I fry them in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan. At home, I’ll use a drying rack to keep them crispy, but suspending them across two twigs does the same thing. Once they hit the drying rack, I hit them with a healthy dose of kosher salt.

Time to move on to the fish. Thanks to legend Josh McFaddin and Catch Cook Coatings, bringing this halibut to life was easy peasy. I was given a six-pack of 33 Acres Brewing Nirvana for my birthday, which is both a great b-day beer and a mix for the batter.

Once battered, I fry my halibut fillets on medium-high heat until the fish is opaque throughout. 

To bring everything together, I like to prepare some tartar sauce with whole grain mustard, mayo, parsley stems, and spicy green beans. 

With a spritz of fresh lemon and freshly cracked beer, this b-day meal was ready for me to eat.

With a spritz of fresh lemon and freshly cracked beer, this b-day meal was ready for me to eat.

Teddy Cosco is an assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, a passionate outdoorsman, enthusiastic home cook, and sometimes-lucky fly fisherman. Exploring the tundra via floatplane, fishing off the coast of Alaska and camping throughout Western Canada, he grew up with the outdoors in his blood. Follow @castandiron for adventure and recipe inspiration.