Necessity is the mother of invention, it is said. And last night, it was necessary in my kitchen. We were having Honey Chicken, a delicious deep fryed dish of loveliness, and my regular (read - the last time I made it) batter recipe called for beer. After all, everyone knows that beer batter is just the best.

Not any more! I couldn't be bothered going out to get the beer. I was just going to make a very boring yeasted batter, but then remembered Peter Reinhart saying "Beer is liquid bread, bread is solid beer"... I ran to the refrigerator and pulled out the sourdough starter.

50g mature starter (100% hydration)

308g water

35g rye flour

107g bread flour

I whisked all that together and left that to sit in a warm place for about 2-3 hours, and it went very well. Delicious odour to it...

toss the chicken in some cornflour, coat in the batter and deepfry until done. This sourdough batter was the best I have made in 6 years making this dish (ok, so I usually only make it 3 or 4 times a year ;)) It was crunchy crisp and had an amazing flavour, and when I tossed the fried chicken in the honey mixture (stirfry a finely chopped chunk of ginger, add 1/3 cup honey, add chicken when honey is bubbly, once honey is coated mix together 1 tbs soy sauce and 1 tbs cornflour then stir that through) the batter stayed crisp!

A great meal. Now I'm on the lookout for more things I can deepfry in this batter! Unfortunately no pictures as we ate it too quickly!