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SMELTS, FRIED (another way)
Smelts are usually fried. Clean and empty them, wipe them dry, and egg and bread-crumb them. Fry them of a fine colour, and send them to table garnished with fried parsley. Smelts may also be prepared au gratin like soles.
A terse Victorian frying instruction that assumes you know how to handle a small whole fish. The points below fill in the numbers Cassell's leaves out.
- The fish itselfSmelt are small silvery fish, usually 4-7 in. long, sold whole and often frozen. If you cannot get them, sprats, fresh anchovies or very small whiting take the same treatment.
- "Clean and empty"Gut through a small slit at the belly or by pulling the gills and viscera out together; leave head and tail on, which is how small fish of this kind were served. Some cooks curled the fish with the tail through the mouth or eye socket before crumbing, though the recipe says nothing of it and straight is fine.
- Bone dry before crumbingThis is the hinge. Damp skin makes the egg-and-crumb coat slide off in the fat, which is why the recipe says to wipe them dry. Pat them dry, then egg, then fine dry crumbs; a preliminary dusting of seasoned flour is a common modern addition, though Cassell's does not call for it.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe does not say whether to shallow or deep fry; for deep frying, 350-375F is the usual modern range. "A fine colour" means a good golden brown, reached in about 2-3 minutes; smelt are thin and overcook into dryness quickly. Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop below 340F.
- Fried parsleyDry curly parsley sprigs thoroughly, then drop them into the hot fat for 15-30 seconds until they stop hissing and turn bright translucent green. Wet parsley will spit violently.
- Au gratin, as for solesThe classic gratin of sole is laid in a buttered dish with a duxelles or shallot-and-mushroom mixture, moistened with white wine or stock, strewn with crumbs and butter, and baked in a hot oven until the crumbs colour. Check the book's own sole au gratin recipe for the version intended here; no temperature is given.
- Yield and serviceThe recipe gives no quantities; as a rough guide, allow 5-6 smelt per person as a first course and 8-10 as a main. Serve with lemon and, if you like, a thin tartare or plain brown bread and butter.
Smelt were once a genuine seasonal event in Britain and the north-eastern United States, netted in numbers as they ran up rivers to spawn in late winter and spring; the European smelt, Osmerus eperlanus, was nicknamed the sparling and prized for a faint smell of cut cucumber that is said to be the mark of a fresh fish. Because they were cheap, plentiful and small enough to eat whole, they belonged to the same class of dish as whitebait: fried crisp, garnished with fried parsley, and eaten bones and all. Cassell's gives the recipe twice, in different words, which tells you how routine the technique was in a late-Victorian kitchen. River smelt runs have since collapsed in many places, and certain populations are protected in particular jurisdictions, so what appears here as an everyday fish is, in much of its old range, no longer common on the slab.