Air Fryer Fish and Chips

Let's get the honesty out of the way first: this is not the chippy. Real chip-shop fish is a wet beer batter dropped into beef dripping or oil at 350°F, where it puffs and blisters into that glassy, greasy-in-the-best-way shell. You cannot do that in an air fryer — wet batter drips through the basket and cooks into a sad lace doily before the fan even gets going. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.

What you can do is build a different, genuinely great fish supper: cod under a shattering panko crust, thick-cut chips with real corners on them, and a kitchen that doesn't smell like a fryer for three days. The trade is crunch style, not quality — you give up the batter's chew and puff, you get a lighter, crispier armor and about a quarter of the fat. We've made peace with that trade on a Tuesday night, and we suspect you will too.

Two techniques carry the whole dish. First, toss the panko with oil before it touches the fish. An air fryer browns what fat touches; dry crumbs come out the color of sand and the flavor of nothing. Second, cook chips and fish separately. Crowd them together and the fish steams over the potatoes while the chips go leathery. Chips first — they hold and re-crisp brilliantly — then the fish gets the basket to itself, and a thermometer tells you the moment the cod hits 145°F instead of letting you guess your way to dry fish.

Thick chips are non-negotiable, and this is a hill we'll die on: half an inch, minimum. Skinny fries are an American habit that turns to shrapnel in a convection basket. A proper chip should thunk when it lands on the plate, fluffy in the middle, and stand up to a serious dousing of malt vinegar — which, yes, contains gluten, and in a dish that's already declared it, pour freely.