Latest news with #fishAndChips
BBC News
8 hours ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
East of England news quiz of the week 21-27 June
From a quirky way to get to prom to the future of fish and chips, how much East of England news can you remember from the past seven days? Follow East of England news on X, Instagram and Facebook: BBC Beds, Herts & Bucks, BBC Cambridgeshire, BBC Essex, BBC Norfolk, BBC Northamptonshire or BBC Suffolk.
Telegraph
06-06-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The best supermarket tartare sauce, tried and tasted
Apparently tartare sauce is ready for a rebrand. Heinz, which withdrew its tartare sauce in 2002, launched a Fish & Chips Sauce this year which the company is touting as 'tartare 2... the new must-have for fish dinners.' I'm not sure I need an upgrade on tartare 1.0, thank you. The chunky condiment, known as tartar sauce (no 'e') on the other side of the Atlantic, is sauce qua non with fish, especially fried fish. But it's brilliant with chicken too, and was originally an accompaniment for steak tartar (which never has an 'e'). A proper tartare sauce has a creamy base, generally mayonnaise, although a few of the more expensive readymade versions add cream. Then it needs a feisty, vinaigery crunch, achieved with chopped gherkins, capers, shallots and herbs – the classic is fine herbes, parsley with some or all of chervil, tarragon and chives, although most of the commercially available sauces I tried for the taste test below featured just parsley. The exceptions are the M&S Collection version, which has untraditional but delicious dill, and Heinz which contains dill and parsley, though you'd never know from the flavour. Of course, you could easily make your own, especially if you use ready-made mayonnaise, just stirring in the other components. It will, however, require buying jars, packets and bunches of those ingredients, and using only a small amount. That's a big cost up front: a back-of-envelope calculation, and including only parsley in the way of herbs, came to just shy of £7, while a jar of ready-made costs from 65p to £2.60. But can the ready-made sauces measure up to homemade? Generally not, when it comes to ingredients that nudge them into ultra-processed food (UPF) territory. Of the 18 sauces I tried, most were 'shelf stable', or ambient: in jars that sit happily at room temperature until they have been opened, at which point they need to live in the fridge. All of them contain stabilisers, such as xanthan gum or guar gum, or even modified starch, which does the same job of holding the water in the emulsion. All but three contain preservatives, usually potassium sorbate. Heinz, M&S Collection and Waitrose Essential manage without preservatives at least, which goes to show what is possible. But bear in mind that using ready-made mayo to make homemade tartare sauce will almost certainly add a few industrial ingredients to the mix, such as the antioxidant, flavourings and paprika extract in Hellmann's. If making your own mayo feels like a step too far, but you want to avoid weird additives, there is an alternative, at a surprisingly reasonable price. M&S, Waitrose and Sainsbury's all sell chilled tartare sauce (although M&S's version wasn't available when I was testing). None of them have any untoward ingredients, and both the ones I tried taste much closer to what you might make at home. Better still, they are no more expensive than the top-end jars. That's the sauce. Skip to: How we tasted All the tartare sauce was brought to room temperature. While I was out of the room, my lovely assistant (AKA my husband) then dolloped them into individual containers and labelled them A-N to anonymise them. At this point I was allowed back into the room to taste the sauces. After I had judged the sauces for flavour and texture, the identity of each sauce was revealed and I examined the ingredients and nutrition, while also looking at price, in order to assess their value.
Telegraph
09-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
The ‘proper' way to eat fish and chips, according to Telegraph readers
This week, Heinz caused controversy by renaming its famed tartare sauce 'fish and chips sauce ' in a rebrand tailored to pique buyers' curiosity. The change comes as fish-based meals (especially the iconic battered combo with chips) increase in popularity, with research suggesting there is an appetite among customers for a 'new' accompaniment to the nation's favourite Friday dinner. For some, however, the chippy tea is not to be messed with, and as Telegraph readers flocked to the comments to share their view on the 'proper' way to eat fish and chips, a condiment conflict commenced... 'Tartare isn't fish and chip sauce!' Perhaps the biggest area of debate surrounded the audaciousness of the name change, from tartare sauce to 'fish and chip' sauce. Readers around the country weighed in to suggest the condiments they would sooner give this label. Readers from northern England felt passionate about representing their county's distinct combination. 'Fish and chips sauce implies curry sauce to me,' says Adrian Goomesh, 'though gravy is popular in Lancashire and Yorkshire. I wouldn't eat fish and chips with tartare sauce. Mushy peas and curry sauce, for me!' David Yetter, an American reader influenced by a brief residence in Sheffield, argues that 'salt and vinegar is the only way to go, but Henderson's Relish works for the occasional change of pace'. Julian Douglas-Smith shares his fondness for a splash of something tangy, sweet and tart, preferring Worcestershire sauce (akin to Henderson's but made with anchovies) on his fish and chips, while other readers weighed in with their penchant for brown sauce served on the side. But for a large majority, including an anonymous reader using the name Zinc Nation, 'the correct accompaniment for fish and chips is tomato ketchup for the fish, and quality mayonnaise and ketchup for the chips. Everybody knows that.' 'Just salt and vinegar for me, thanks!' A number of readers were surprised to learn how popular sauces are with fish and chips, compared with simple seasoning. An anonymous reader writes, 'What happened to newspaper and vinegar? Am I out of date?' Amid debate over what type of vinegar is acceptable, in Roger Dyer's case the 'only acceptable condiment' is strictly malt vinegar; a large group of readers agree that simplicity is the key to perfection. As reader D. Curtis says, 'Sauces on fish and chips? I don't know what they are teaching them these days. You would have been laughed out of any Sheffield chip shop for asking for 'owt but salt and vinegar.' 'Make your own' Valuing tradition, a number of Telegraph readers believe that making tartare sauce from scratch is the only way to ensure you enjoy your meal every time. Reader Helen Emsley speaks for several commenters when she says, 'Why is anyone buying this when it's so overpriced? It's so easy to make yourself.' John Pickard, a reader who has expertise in the area, says, 'Every time I cook pan-fried fish I make my own tartare sauce. Capers, gherkins and parsley all chopped and mixed with mayonnaise, just as I learnt at Torquay Tech in '61 and '62 on a two-year catering course.' He's in good company. 'Make your own!' insists Sandra Brennan. 'It takes no time at all, and tastes absolutely delicious.'
