Peixinhos da Horta
Portuguese Battered Green Beans
Green beans, briefly boiled, dipped in a thin egg batter and fried until crisp. The name means little fish from the garden, because that is roughly what they look like when they come out of the oil. Eat them hot with a squeeze of lemon.
They are a standard petisco, the Portuguese small plate, served in bars before a meal or alongside drinks.
The recipe read blanches the beans for two minutes, makes a batter of equal volumes of flour and water with egg and a little baking powder, and fries at 175°C.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 450 g green beans, topped and tailed
- 100 g plain flour
- 180 ml cold water
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp fine sea salt
- A pinch of black pepper
- 1 litre sunflower or groundnut oil, for deep-frying
- Flaky sea salt and lemon wedges, to serve
Method
- Blanch the beans Boil the beans in salted water for 2 minutes, until bright green and just tender. Drain, cool under the cold tap and dry thoroughly on a tea towel. Wet beans will spit in the oil.
- Make the batter Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Whisk in the eggs and water until smooth. The batter should be thin enough to coat a bean lightly and run off.
- Heat the oil Pour the oil into a deep, heavy saucepan; it should come no more than a third of the way up. Heat to 175°C.
- Fry Dip the beans in the batter a few at a time, let the excess drip off and lower them into the oil. Fry for 3 to 4 minutes, turning once, until golden and crisp. Lift onto a wire rack. Let the oil come back to 175°C between batches.
- Serve Sprinkle with flaky salt and serve at once with lemon wedges.
Food safety
Deep-frying: never fill the pan more than a third full, never leave hot oil unattended, keep the handle turned in and have a lid to hand to smother flames. Never put water on burning oil. Let the oil cool completely before moving it.
Fry in small batches. Crowding the pan drops the temperature and the batter turns greasy.