This is a bit of a labour of love but once you cook it you will be so happy you will not be sorry.

Ingredients
2kg Vivaldi potatoes, peeled 
4 litres of oil (I like corn oil but vegetable or sunflower will work just as well) 
4 Cod fillets 
Salt 
Pepper 

Vinegar for serving - I like onion vinegar but use your favourite 

Batter Ingredients 
120g self raising flour 
1 tsp salt 
250ml sparkling water 

Mushy Peas Ingredients 
200g Petit pois  
20g butter 
½ tsp sugar 
½ tsp salt 

Tartare Sauce Ingredients 
100ml mayonnaise 
2 tbsp capers (from a jar), chopped 
2 tbsp gherkins, chopped 
1 small shallot, finely chopped 
Squeeze of lemon juice 
½ tsp sugar 

Method
Heat the oven to 160c. Put a parchment lined large baking dish into your oven along with a smaller baking dish also lined with parchment paper.  The large dish is for your cooked chips and the smaller for your fish. 

Start with your tartare sauce as this improves with time.  Take all the ingredients, put into a bowl and mix.  Season with salt and pepper. Taste and check, if it is too sharp add a touch more sugar and if a little sweet add a touch more salt. If still too sweet add ½ tsp of the gherkin vinegar.

You can ‘square off’ your potatoes if you want the chips to be perfectly square, sometimes I do but mostly I don’t.  It wastes potatoes and to be honest my family don’t care about the shape, just how long it is going to take to cook! 

I try to get potatoes that are not too big, I turn them so them on to their narrow edge and cut them in half, then lie them flat and cut them into slices.  The thickness depends on you, I sometimes make thin ones and other times thicker.  Once you slice them put them onto a clean tea towel and cover with another clean tea towel, you want the potato slices to dry out without oxidising. 

Heat your oil to 170c, if you have a deep fat fryer use this, otherwise use a large saucepan, thermometer and just watch the heat, oil can be very dangerous so you need to be careful. 

Dry the cod fillets with kitchen paper. Season well, then lightly dust with flour (this ensures the batter sticks to the fillets). Shake off any extra flour.

Meanwhile, mix the batter ingredients in a large jug or bowl. Carefully take a piece of cod and put into your batter ensuring it is all covered.  Take that cod fillet and carefully put into the oil.  The easiest way to do this is with your hands.  Depending on the size of your pan, try to cook 2 pieces at a time.  Cook until perfectly golden - this may take up to 10 minutes.  Once they are done place them on a parchment lined baking tray and put to one side. Repeat the process with your remaining 2 pieces. 

Cook your potatoes in batches, you don’t want to overcrowd your pan but at the same time you don’t want to have too few in there or the cooking time will be extremely long. I try to do mine in batches of 3.  Fry the first batch and when they are just starting to turn ever so slightly golden remove them from the oil and put on to a tray lined with kitchen roll. Repeat with your other 2 batches. 

Turn the oil pan up to 190c. Put your cod now into the oven along with a large baking pan/tray for your chips.  Now fry half of your potatoes for a second time until nicely golden.  When you pull these chips out, put on to kitchen roll, put your next batch in the oil and then put the doubled fried chips into the oven.  Repeat until the chips are all doubled fried. 

While your chips are cooking for the second time, make your mushy peas.  Put your peas into boiling water and cook for roughly 3-4 minutes until tender.  Drain and add butter, salt and sugar.  Take a potato masher or fork and mash until the peas are properly crushed.  Check for seasoning.  

Your first chip will make you smile and forget the last hour of cooking!