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Fish, to Fry
The great excellence of fried fish consists in its freedom from grease. When practicable, the fish to be fried should be entirely immersed in fat which has attained the proper temperature--that is, when it is still, has a blue smoke rising from it, and fizzes and sends out air-bubbles when a little piece of bread is thrown into it. Fry to a delicate brown, and drain before the fire on an inverted sieve. Get the fish in good condition; let it be quite dry, dredge it with flour, brush with egg, and strew well with bread-crumbs. Use oil, butter, lard, or dripping. (See also FRY, TO.)
A method entry rather than a dish, and the whole of it turns on fat temperature. The Victorian sensory cues work, but a thermometer works better.
- The temperature cues, translated"Still, with a blue smoke rising" describes fat approaching its smoke point, which for lard or dripping is somewhere around 370-390F. Aim for 350-375F on a thermometer. The entry's own test is that a little piece of bread fizzes and throws off air-bubbles; if you prefer a browning test, bread colouring in under a minute is in the right range.
- Blue smoke is a warning, not a targetWith modern refined oils, visible smoke means the fat has begun to break down and will taste acrid. Groundnut, sunflower or refined rapeseed oil all hold 375F comfortably without smoking, so use the bread test rather than waiting for smoke.
- Dripping and lardBeef dripping and lard were common frying fats and give a very crisp crust. Butter is listed here among the options, but it will burn long before deep-frying heat, so in practice it suits shallow frying in the pan; clarified butter or ghee if you want the flavour.
- Dry the fish, and mean itThis is the hinge. Surface water turns to steam under the coating and lifts it off the flesh, and it drops the fat temperature sharply. Blot fillets on both sides and leave them uncovered in the fridge for twenty minutes if there is time.
- The coating orderFlour, then egg, then crumbs, as written. Skipping the flour is the usual reason breadcrumbs slide off. Let the crumbed fish rest ten minutes before it goes into the fat so the coating sets.
- Draining "before the fire"An inverted sieve in front of an open range kept air moving under the fish. A wire rack over a tray in a 250F oven does the same job; paper towel alone traps steam and softens the underside.
- BatchesFry in small quantities. Filling the pan drops the fat below 325F, at which point the coating absorbs oil instead of sealing, which is exactly the greasiness the entry opens by warning against.
- TimingNo times are given; this is a general method entry rather than a dish. A 3/4-inch fillet takes roughly 3-4 minutes at 350F; thin flat fish about 2 minutes; whitebait under a minute.
Entries like this exist because judging fat temperature was not straightforward. Cooks' thermometers were available but uncommon in home kitchens, so the bread-cube test and the reading of smoke colour did the work. The insistence on greaselessness reflects an anxiety of the period, when fried fish was strongly associated with cheap street sale, and the fried-fish trade of London's East End, generally traced to Jewish immigrant cooks who fried fish in oil to be eaten cold, was already feeding the fish-and-chip shops that spread across industrial England in the second half of the nineteenth century.