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Gordon Ramsay Attempts To Make Fish & Chips at Home in 10 Minutes

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Gordon Ramsay bets his own kitchen clock that he can put fish and chips on the table in ten minutes flat.

The latest edition of Ramsay in 10 Live finds the chef cooking from his own kitchen during the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown, part of the #StayHome push he and his family have been promoting on social media throughout April 2020. This time the target is a pub classic: golden battered fish, thin-cut chips, and a quick tartar sauce, all built from scratch before a countdown timer runs out. No commercial fryer, no brigade of sous chefs — just Ramsay, a pan of sunflower oil, and ten minutes on the clock.

• Ramsay shallow-fries the fish in a standard large pan of sunflower oil rather than using a deep fryer, keeping the method realistic for a home kitchen.
• The batter is a fast self-rising-flour mix with light beer or lager, baking powder, an egg white, and curry powder, coating fresh white fish such as cod.
• He pairs the fish with thin-cut fries from peeled waxy potatoes and a homemade tartar sauce of mayonnaise, crème fraîche, diced shallots, chopped gherkins, lemon juice, salt, and an optional dash of hot sauce.

Shallow-Frying Instead of a Deep Fryer

Most fish-and-chip-shop cooking depends on a dedicated deep fryer holding a large volume of oil at a steady temperature — not something most home cooks have sitting on the counter. Ramsay’s workaround is shallow frying in a wide pan filled with sunflower oil, a method that gets the same crisp batter and flaky fish without the equipment. It’s the kind of adjustment that makes the dish actually doable during a lockdown grocery run, when a trip out for specialty gear isn’t happening.

Cutting the potatoes into thin fries rather than thick-cut chips is the other half of the time-saving equation. Thinner cuts cook through faster in shallower oil, which matters enormously when the whole plate has to be built in ten minutes rather than the twenty-plus a chip shop might take. Viewers looking for more on knife technique around potatoes can find a companion demonstration in Satisfying Knife Skills – Cut Potato l Chinese Recipes by Masterchef, which covers the kind of precise cutting that speeds up frying time.

The Fast Beer Batter

Ramsay’s batter skips the usual rest-and-chill approach in favor of speed: self-rising flour, light beer or lager, baking powder, an egg white for lift, and a hit of curry powder for color and flavor. The fish itself — a firm white fillet like cod — gets a dusting of flour first so the batter actually clings on contact with the hot oil. It’s a stripped-down version of the classic fish-and-chip-shop batter, built specifically to go from bowl to pan without the usual waiting period.

“I’m happy with it,” he said.

Tartar Sauce Under Pressure

While the fish sizzles, Ramsay assembles a tartar sauce designed to come together in seconds rather than minutes: mayonnaise and crème fraîche as the base, diced shallots and chopped gherkins for texture, a squeeze of lemon juice, a pinch of salt, and an optional dash of hot sauce for anyone who wants a kick. It’s a shortcut version of the traditional condiment, but it hits the same notes — sharp, creamy, and built to cut through the richness of the fried fish. Home cooks looking for other quick kitchen shortcuts during quarantine can browse the Cooking & Food Experiences category for more.

Running the batter, the fries, and the sauce at the same time inside a hard ten-minute window is really the whole premise of the segment — Ramsay juggling three moving parts on a single countdown clock, the same pressure-cooker format that’s made Ramsay in 10 Live a recurring watch during lockdown.