• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup (12 oz) beer
• optional (creativity opportunity) up to 2 tsp total of dried herbs or spices (dried parsley, marjoram, celery seed, basil, savory, thyme, cayenne pepper, coriander, onion powder and garlic powder are all excellent additions. You can use your creativity here. I recommend not using black pepper, it tends to get bitter at the high temps of frying.

Sift and mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add the beer and mix.

Use to coat small fish fillets or chicken fillets or pieces for frying. This batter also works great on onion rings and for frying mushrooms.

For frying, pour your oil into a large, heavy pot. Use lard or an oil with a high smoking point like peanut oil or canola oil. I prefer peanut oil myself. Heat the oil to 375° Farenheight. Use a frying thermometer. The temperature is critical.

Place your battered pieces in the oil without crowding them. Do not overload the pot. It's best if the temperature is maintained at 350°F or higher. Adding too much to the fryer at once will cool the oil too much. If the oil cools, your food will be greasier.

If you use this on frozen items, be sure to completely thaw your food and dry everything before dipping in the batter and frying. Also, dredging meat or fish pieces in some dry flour before dipping in the batter will help the batter to adhere to the food better.

Last night, I used this on some Alaskan Pollock fillets, along with some onion rings and some fried mushrooms. All were excellent!

Oh, and this is cross posted from "Beer Battered fish (or even Beer Battered Onion Rings)" on my Blog, Common Cents