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PARSLEY, FRIED (for garnishing)
Wash and dry the parsley thoroughly, by swinging it backwards and forwards in a cloth. Put it into hot fat, and let it remain until it is crisp; take it out immediately, and drain it before the fire. If the parsley is allowed to remain in the fat one moment after it is crisp it will be spoilt. Parsley is best fried in a frying-basket. If this is not at hand, the herb should be taken out of the fat with a slicer.
A garnish that takes seconds and is ruined in one. The original's warning about leaving it a moment too long is the whole recipe.
- Dry it or don't fry itWet parsley will spit violently in hot fat and steam itself limp instead of crisping. Swinging it in a cloth works; a salad spinner followed by ten minutes spread on a towel works better.
- Fat temperatureThe book assumes you can judge the fat by eye. Aim for 340-350F (170-175C). Hotter and the leaves brown and turn bitter before they crisp; cooler and they absorb fat and go soggy.
- How long is "until crisp"Ten to twenty seconds. The sputtering stops and the leaves stiffen and darken slightly while staying green. Lift them the instant the bubbling quietens rather than watching for colour.
- Frying-basket substitutesThe "slicer" here is most likely a perforated skimmer or fish-slice. A wire spider or a fine mesh strainer does the same job; the point is to remove every sprig at once, since stragglers overcook in the residual heat.
- Draining"Before the fire" means somewhere warm and dry that will not steam the crispness back out. Paper towel on a warm plate, uncovered, is the modern equivalent.
- Which parsleyCurly parsley is the usual garnishing sort and holds its shape better in fat. Flat-leaf works but collapses into darker, flatter flakes.
- Fat choice and reuseAny neutral oil or clarified fat with a high smoke point. The parsley leaves a green, herbal note behind, so keep the fat for savoury frying rather than doughnuts.
- QuantityA large handful of sprigs, roughly an ounce, garnishes a platter for six to eight. Fry in small batches so the fat temperature does not crash.
Fried parsley was standard finish work in the late-Victorian professional kitchen, where it appeared alongside fried fish, cutlets and whitebait as a matter of course rather than as a flourish. It belongs to the same family of small technical skills as clarifying fat or turning vegetables — things a cook was expected to execute without thinking. The instruction to use a frying-basket points to the era's deep-fat cookery; the alternative slicer, or skimmer, was the domestic cook's tool. Its long survival as the escort to fried fish is sometimes explained by the same logic that puts lemon on the plate: something sharp and green to cut the fat, cooked in the fat itself so nothing extra is heated.