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Smelts, Fried
Draw and wipe the smelts, trim off the fins, soak the fish in milk, and flour them well; or, if preferred, flour them, and then dip them in beaten egg and bread-raspings. Fry in hot fat till they are crisp and brown. Take them up carefully with a slicer, drain them on blottingpaper sprinkle a little salt over them, and serve on a napkin on a dish. Put half a lemon at each end of the dish, and garnish with fried parsley. If liked, the lemon may be omitted, and shrimp or Tartar sauce may be served with the smelts. Time to fry the smelts, three to five minutes. Probable cost, 1s. to 2s. per dozen. Sufficient, a dozen for five or six persons.
A straightforward Victorian fish course that still works, provided the fat is hot enough and the fish are small. Almost nothing here needs changing except the vocabulary.
- Bread-raspingsRaspings were the dried, grated crusts of stale bread, kept in a jar and used as a coating. Fine dry breadcrumbs are the direct equivalent; panko gives a coarser crust than intended.
- Fat temperatureThe hinge of the dish. The book says only "hot fat"; in modern terms that is around 350-375F (175-190C), hot enough that the coating sets on contact. Below that the milk-and-flour crust absorbs oil and the flesh turns woolly before it browns.
- Three to five minutesAccurate, and only because true smelts run 4-7 inches. Fish larger than that will need the pan temperature dropped slightly or the outside will darken before the centre is set.
- Drawing the fishSmelts are often sold whole and cooked entire, heads and all, since the bones are soft enough to eat. If you would rather gut them, a thumbnail behind the gill and a pull takes out most of the insides in one motion.
- Blotting-paperUnsized paper used for ink. Kitchen paper on a rack does the same job better; draining on a flat plate steams the underside soft.
- Fried parsleyVery dry parsley sprigs dropped into the same hot fat for about ten seconds, until they go rigid and dark green. Wet parsley will spit violently, so shake it out thoroughly first.
- Cost and yieldOne to two shillings a dozen puts these within reach of a middle-class household without being a luxury fish. A dozen for five or six people is a fish-course portion; as a main, allow six to eight per person.
- ServingThe napkin on the dish is a Victorian service convention, and it does absorb residual fat. A warmed plate lined with paper achieves the same and looks less like laundry.
Smelts (Osmerus eperlanus) were a fixture of the British fish course through the nineteenth century, netted in estuaries in cold weather and prized for a distinct smell of cucumber in the fresh fish, which is where the name is often said to come from. The Thames once supported a commercial smelt fishery and their disappearance from the tidal river during the pollution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was frequently cited as a marker of its decline. Cassell's treats them as a plentiful small fish: the preparation is minimal, and the whole point is crispness. The alternative sauces named at the end - shrimp and Tartar - were common Victorian accompaniments to fried fish, and their presence here signals that a cook could serve smelts either as a light, plain course with lemon or dressed up somewhat for company.