To Fry Perch
Sprinkle with salt and dredge with flour; after a while dredge with flour the other side. When the lard boils hard, skim it well and put in the fish. Serve hot.--Mrs. W.
A nineteenth-century frying note that assumes you already know how to clean and scale a panfish. The instructions are terse; the useful detail is in what is left out.
- "After a while"The recipe gives no time. The salt-and-flour rest works as a dry brine: salt draws moisture, the flour absorbs it, and the resulting paste tends to crisp rather than slough off in the fat. A rest of ten minutes or so a side is a reasonable modern reading; a long rest risks softened flesh and a gummy coating.
- Lard depth and temperature"boils hard" describes fat that is fully hot and no longer spitting off moisture; in modern terms this is usually taken as somewhere around 360-375F. Lard is what Mrs. W. had; refined lard, peanut oil or shortening all work. A cast-iron skillet with half an inch of fat is enough for perch.
- Skim before frying, not afterThe recipe has you skim the hot fat before the fish goes in. Skimming lifts off scum and any sediment that would otherwise scorch onto the fish. Worth doing between batches as well, topping the fat up so the level stays constant.
- TimingSmall yellow perch fillets need 2-3 minutes a side; whole pan-dressed fish of half a pound, 4-5 minutes a side. Fish is done when the flesh at the backbone turns opaque and separates cleanly from the bone; the interior should read 145F.
- Whole fish assumedThe recipe gives no dressing instructions, and the reference to flouring "the other side" suggests whole pan-dressed fish rather than fillets. Two shallow slashes through the skin on each side of a whole fish help it cook evenly and keep the skin from curling.
- Drain and serveOnto a rack rather than paper if you have one, salted the moment it leaves the fat. "Serve hot" is the whole point of the recipe -- fried freshwater fish loses its texture within minutes.
- YieldFigure two or three pan-sized perch, or about 6 oz of fillet, per person. The recipe suggests no accompaniment; lemon, a plain tartar or a cruet of vinegar are conventional modern partners.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by Virginia housewives, is full of these clipped, initialed entries -- a recipe passed between women who all already knew the technique and needed only the reminder. Perch here means the small freshwater panfish of the Virginia rivers and millponds, caught in quantity by anyone with a line. Frying in lard was the default for such fish across the American South well into the twentieth century.