Beard Battered Fish

Flaky white fish gets a craggy, whisker-ridged crust built the old-fashioned way — the batter worked in with an honest-to-goodness beard instead of a brush. Fried golden in a fizzy beer batter with a hit of smoked paprika, it's a fish fry that earns its name plank for plank.

Serves 6 · as served on Bluesky ↗

There's a fryer humming out back and a fresh batch of beer batter working up a good fizz, which is exactly the mood for a fish fry like this one. My brother-in-law Denny's got a beard thick enough to shingle a barn, and one Friday up at the lake he joked his whiskers had more surface area than any brush in my tackle box — so we tried it, and doggone if that shaggy texture didn't give the crust some real character. The trick is treating the beard just like a pastry brush: work it down through the wet batter and along each fillet so every strand leaves a little ridge behind before it hits the hot oil. Cod holds up best here, but any flaky white fish will do fine. Fry it hot and quick so the crust sets before it can go soft, and you end up with something craggier and crunchier than any ordinary beer batter ever managed.

Ingredients

Fresh

• 1 piece full thick beard (washed and fully dried, held by the chin strap)
• 2 piece lemon (cut into wedges)

Fridge

• 2 lb cod fillets (patted dry)
• 1 cup tartar sauce

Pantry

• 1½ cup lager beer
• 2 cup all-purpose flour (divided)
• ½ cup cornstarch
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 4 cup vegetable oil (for frying)

Spice rack

• 1 tsp kosher salt (plus more for seasoning)
• 1 tsp black pepper (cracked)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp garlic powder

Directions

1. In a wide shallow dish, whisk together half the flour with the cornstarch, baking powder, kosher salt, black pepper, smoked paprika, and garlic powder - this is your dry dredge.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining flour with the lager beer until it's about as thick as pancake batter, with the fizz still working through it.
3. Pat the cod fillets dry and season both sides with a pinch of salt and pepper.
4. Dredge each fillet through the dry mix, shaking off the excess, then dunk it into the beer batter until fully coated.
5. Take the beard by the chin strap, dip the whiskers into the leftover batter, and comb it firmly down the length of each fillet so every strand presses a little ridge into the coating, building the craggy, shag-carpet crust that gives this dish its name.
6. Heat the vegetable oil in a heavy pot to 350 degrees and fry the fillets two at a time, turning once, until deep golden and crackled, about 5 minutes total. ⏱ 5 min
7. Drain on a wire rack for a minute, then serve hot with lemon wedges and tartar sauce on the side.

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