Tony's Talk - Make your Fish far healthier with Whitley's Pulse Batter

May 1, 2019 Robert Fernandes

Tony's Talk - Make your Fish far healthier with Whitley's Pulse Batter...

Pulses are widely recognised for containing high levels of protein, fibre, essential vitamins and minerals. They are also extremely valuable to Farmers for they replace nitrogen in the soil reducing the need for artificial fertilisers whereas other crops take nitrogen out of the soil.

Traditionally our Trade has cooked fish very healthily by steaming it and retaining all its inherent nutrients within its fried batter coating. Whereas grilling fish can lose many of these benefits for they can drift away during cooking.

To further improve the advantages of battered fish during the 1980’s we sought to reduce the level of oil absorption during frying. We tried many proprietary starches and natural gums that purported to do exactly this. Many showed a degree of improvement but at a cost that would have made our batters totally uncompetitive.

Tony's Talk - Make your Fish far healthier with Whitley's Pulse Batter...

It was in the ‘90’s that our Marrowfat supplier asked if we had any use for pea fibre. They supplied a major food producer with peas togo into their soups and ready meals. They took the pea skins off first, ground them into a flour but had lots to spare. We found that adding the pea fibre oil absorption was reduced by over 10% without adding to the cost of the batter. However, after two years the supply dried up as the manufacturer reformulated its product range. We could have had our own pea flour milled but at exorbitant costs.

Some six years ago a tiny paragraph in ‘Food Manufacture’ magazine announced that a company had started “milling pulse flours in Canada”.

We eventually secured samples of the flours involved and ran exhaustive trials.

One flour milled from a bean produced such excellent results that we subsequently patented its use in ‘Pulse’ Batter.

It reduces oil absorption by up to 46% over conventional batters as proved with samples analysed by Foodtest Laboratories Ltd. Moreover, when our friend Nigel Hodgson trialled ‘Pulse’ in his shop in Lancaster he observed that it bulked up by up to a third more than conventional batters during mixing.

The cost savings from using less oil and flour in producing ‘Pulse’ battered fish means that this Gluten Free product is only marginally more expensive per fish than a conventional batter.

As the Head of the Guild of Chefs and fellow judges said in London last year when ‘Pulse’ won against products from vastly larger Companies than ours - we tried everything to destroy this batter and couldn’t. It still remained dry and crisp and tasty. Why on earth wouldn’t a Fish and Chip Shop just use ‘Pulse’? It’s a fantastic batter and they would have the advantage of saving oil and being gluten free all of the time - ...we rest our case!

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