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Whitebait, Devilled
Fry the whitebait in the usual way till it is crisp. Lift the basket out of the fat, shake the fish, and sprinkle over it a little salt and black pepper. Plunge the basket again into the fat, and let it remain for a few seconds. Drain the fish, and turn it upon a napkin. If a red devil is required, sprinkle a little cayenne upon the fish (in addition to the black pepper already used) after it is taken out of the fat for the last time. It is a common practice with cooks to take whitebait which has been fried and served in the ordinary way, sprinkle black pepper upon it, plunge it into the hot fat, and after allowing it to remain for a short time to drain it, sprinkle it again with pepper, and serve a second time as devilled whitebait.
Cassell's assumes you already know how to fry whitebait plain, and describes only the devilling. The whole dish turns on the second dip being brief — seconds, not minutes.
- What whitebait isWhole tiny fish, traditionally young herring and sprat, eaten head, bones and all. Look for frozen whitebait at fishmongers and Asian or Mediterranean groceries; drain and pat very dry before flouring, since surface water is what makes the fat spit.
- "Fried in the usual way"The fish are dried, tossed in flour, shaken free of the surplus, and deep-fried in a wire basket until crisp and pale gold: a minute or two for a small batch, in fat hot enough to crisp them at once (about 375F on a modern thermometer, though the book gives no temperature). Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- The second plungeFive to ten seconds is enough. The point is to set the pepper and cayenne against the crust, not to cook the fish further; longer and the little fish dry out and the cayenne scorches bitter.
- Cayenne quantity"a little" cayenne is, in modern terms, about 1/4 teaspoon for a pound of fish, sprinkled from a height so it lands evenly. Cayenne on a hot crisp surface reads far stronger than it looks.
- FatThe original would have used beef dripping or lard, both of which suit the dish. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works; olive oil does not.
- The napkinTurning the fish onto a folded linen napkin on the dish was standard service and does a real job, wicking fat away so the crust stays crisp. A wire rack, then a napkin-lined plate at the last moment, gets the same result.
- Yield and servingAllow 4 to 6 oz of whitebait per person as a first course. Serve immediately with quartered lemon and brown bread and butter; devilled whitebait goes soft within a few minutes.
- The cook's shortcut described at the endRe-frying whitebait already served plain is the same trick applied to leftovers. It works only if the fish has not been sitting long enough to go limp, and only for a few seconds in genuinely hot fat.
Whitebait was a London river dish before it was a restaurant one: the fish were netted in the Thames in spring and summer, and the taverns at Greenwich and Blackwall built a trade on serving them within hours of landing, most famously at the annual ministerial whitebait dinners attended by members of the Cabinet through much of the nineteenth century. "Devilling" -- coating something in pepper, cayenne or mustard and applying fierce heat -- was a broad Georgian and Victorian category applied to kidneys, biscuits, bones, poultry and, as here, fried fish; the name is traditionally associated with the idea of the devil as heat and fire, though the derivation is folk explanation rather than documented. The entry's remark about the "common practice" of re-frying whitebait already served plain records what kitchens actually did as well as what they ought to have done.