This page used to contain an Arthur Treachers Style Fish recipe - but it as now been withdrawn after receiving a series of rude, offensive and at times insulting communications from their lawyers (copies available on request). We have an authentic fish in batter recipe which gives a truly authentic UK style end result.
The rest of this page is now dedicated to a review of Arthur Treachers Fish and Chips.
Fact is, the 'so-called' secret Arthur Treachers recipe is nothing to write home about and if the example I sampled is anything to go by, certainly isn't cooked in a manner true to the traditional UK product. It seems I am not alone, judging by the Arthur Treachers Fried Fish Reviews on Active Diner.
What was wrong with it? The Fish didn't taste like Cod to me (could have been pollock - see below). Batter was over cooked and too crispy. Chips were not chips, they were fries - ie not thick enough and fried at too hot a temperature. In short, they were just like large versions of the fries you get in a burger bar - fine if that is what you wanted, not fine it is supposed to be similar to UK chips.
Arthur Treachers, claimed to sell "old England's national snack" - but had no qualms in compromising the secret Arthur Treachers Fish recipe when times got hard, subsituting the traditional Cod with the much inferior pollock.
I read somewhere that they claimed to have bought the Arthur Treachers Fried Fish Recipe from the very first fish and chip shop in the UK. This is just a gimmick, and a little deceptive to boot. The Fish and Chip shop they quote is 'Malin's', which dated back to the 1860s. Fish and chips predate this by decades (at least), and you can even find reference to them in Charles Dickens work, Oliver Twist (1830's)
Arthur Treachers is now just another franchise, and not a very big one judging from their figures
If the sample I tried was typical, it is no surpise that their chain has been much troubled, going bankrupt along the way, as a result they appear to have diversified into other foodstuffs that have no connection with their UK branding. Cheese sauce on the chips, being a particularly odd combination to brand as authentic 'UK'
Rest assured, this recipe is for the real thing, NOT a copy of Arthur Treacher's Fried Fish - this uses authentic batter and real Cod, and can't be beaten by the imitations offered by chain franchise outlets.
Arthur Treacher's Fish Recipe - a review
Categories: Fish; Seafood
The History of Recipes
It is quite possible to track the history of written cooking instructions far back into ancient history, at least as far back into recorded history as the early Egyptians, and maybe further still. Having said that, generally, these ancient cook books were just very basic pictorial instructions for meal preparation.
Interestingly, the oldest recipe discovered so far, according to experts in ancient history are some stone tablets in ancient Sumerian which show the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making anyone who drank it feel blissful. Progressing into The time of the romans around 25BC a roman called Apicius created a collection of scripts describing recipes prepared by his fellow Romans. In his works, Apicius recounts how the roman meals were divided into appetizers, main meal and desserts, a very modern way of dining. He also informs us how the chefs of Roman times made use of many different spices and herbs, including a few that will be familiar to modern chefs such as thyme, fennel and parsley. Moving on, there were a couple of interesting books dating from the 14th Century - a book titled `Forme of Cury`, and another called `Curye on Inglish`. Perhaps surprisingly, these two books are unconnected to the indian curry that we all know today, but rather accounts of the types of food on the menues of the rich and wealthy people of the period. Later, in the 15th century, people returning from the crusades brought us many spices and herbs from Arab cuisine, including coriander, parsley, and basil. The introduction of these new foods and spices led to an eruption in books on cookery, most of which still exist in private cookery archives. By the time we get to the twentieth century, cookery books are in great demand, mostly due to higher levels of literacy, people having more leisure time and a general increase in wealth. |
We hope you enjoy this Arthur Treacher Style Fish recipe.
