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Whiting, Fried
Clean, skin, and dry the fish thoroughly in a soft cloth. If they are not perfectly dried, the egg and bread-crumbs will not adhere to them. Turn the tail of each one round and fasten it between the jaws by means of a small skewer. Brush the fish over with lightly-beaten egg, and cover with fine bread-crumbs mixed with a little flour. Fry in plenty of hot fat till they are done through and lightly browned; drain and dry them well, and serve on a dish covered with a napkin. Garnish with parsley. Send anchovy or shrimp sauce to table in a tureen. Small fried whiting are frequently used to garnish large fish, such as turbot and cod. The whiting, if very large, should be split open, crumbed, and fried flat, or they may be filleted, rolled, and fried. Time to fry small whiting, about six minutes. Probable cost, 4d. each. Sufficient, one for each person.
A straightforward egg-and-crumb fry, with two Victorian habits worth knowing about: whiting were skinned before cooking, and they were curled into a ring with the tail pinned in the mouth.
- The hinge: dry fishThe instruction about drying in a soft cloth is the one that decides whether this works. Any surface moisture and the egg slides off in the fat, taking the crumbs with it. Pat the fish dry, then leave them on kitchen paper a few minutes before egging.
- SkinningWhiting skin is thin and was commonly stripped off for frying, which is why this recipe assumes it. A fishmonger may well skin them if asked; a skin-on fillet fries perfectly well, so treat the skinning as optional unless you are serving them whole in the old style.
- The tail in the jawsFastening the tail between the jaws with a skewer holds the fish in a ring so it sits neatly on the dish and cooks evenly. Use a cocktail stick or a short metal skewer, and remove it before serving. If curling seems fussy, split or fillet as the recipe allows at the end.
- Fat temperature"Plenty of hot fat" indicates deep frying; the book gives no temperature, but modern deep-frying practice for this sort of coating is around 350-375F. Below that the crumb absorbs grease; above it the coating colours before a whole small fish is heated through.
- TimingSix minutes, as the recipe gives, suits whole small whiting. Fillets rolled or laid flat need 3-4 minutes, and are done when the flesh flakes and reads about 145F at the thickest point.
- Crumbs with flourThe little flour mixed into the fine crumbs helps them bind and brown. Dry breadcrumbs, not fresh, and not panko, which gives a coarser Japanese-style crust than intended here.
- Serving on a napkinFried fish were sent to table on a folded linen napkin to absorb fat. It is no longer done; a hot dish lined with paper, removed before serving, achieves the same end. Fry the parsley garnish for about 20 seconds in the same fat, and take care as it spits.
- Sauces and quantityAnchovy and shrimp sauce are both butter-and-flour sauces of the period; a good anchovy or brown shrimp butter answers the same purpose. One whole fish per person, as stated; allow two fillets each.
- Cost and substitutesFourpence each was cheap for fish. If whiting is unavailable, small haddock, hake or pollock fillets behave the same way in the pan.
Whiting was widely regarded in nineteenth-century Britain as a light, digestible fish: abundant in the North Sea, delicate, cheap enough at fourpence to appear on ordinary tables, which is why it turns up so often in Victorian sickroom cookery as well as in dinner menus. The ring shape with the tail set in the jaws was more than decoration: it kept a soft-fleshed fish from breaking up and let several be arranged around a platter as a garnish for a large turbot or cod, exactly as the recipe describes. Cassell's cookery dictionaries, issued and reissued from the 1870s onwards, were alphabetical reference works rather than single-author cookbooks, which accounts for the tone here: cost, quantity per head and alternative treatments for large fish are all given because the book expected to be consulted by a cook planning a meal, not read through.