Gluten-Free Tuesday: Beer-Battered Fish Fry

[Photograph: Elizabeth Barbone]

When most people think of food from Wisconsin, they think cheese or beer. While living in Milwaukee ten years ago, I found out that fish fry should also make this list. Each Friday night, many Wisconsin restaurants offer fish fry specials. Where I grew up in upstate New York, fish fry meant New England-style hot dog buns containing long, thin pieces of breaded cod with red cocktail sauce smeared lightly on top. Not so in Milwaukee. There, it's all about a plate of beer battered fish, potato pancakes and, often, a slice of rye bread.

Now that I'm back in New York and gluten-free, popping out to a Milwaukee restaurant is no longer an option. Thankfully, I live with a fish fry expert. My Wisconsin-born husband worked in a Milwaukee restaurant that each week served upwards of 500 fish fries on a Friday night. The biggest challenge in converting his recipe to gluten-free? Paring it down. His original recipe made 10 gallons of batter.

Since the original recipe contained about half cornstarch, converting it to gluten-free was easy. White rice flour replaced the wheat flour to produce a super-crisp, light batter for the fish.

Making the batter is as easy as whipping together pancake batter, and you can make it ahead of time. "We were so busy, I made the fish fry batter hours before service started. If I hadn't, we would have been in the weeds all night," Greg assured me.

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