Fried Fish
For small fish or fish steaks wash and wipe thoroughly. Dip each piece into slightly beaten raw egg then roll in corn-meal or fine stale bread crumbs (the latter are best). Have ready a deep kettle partly filled with smoking hot fat. Immerse two or three pieces at a time; it will take them four or five minutes to cook. When golden brown lift out and drain on unglazed paper before serving. Be sure the fat is smoking hot before putting in each lot of fish.
A bare-bones deep-frying method that assumes you know your fat and your fish. Two things need translating: what "smoking hot" meant when the fat was lard, and how long small fish actually need.
- Do not let the oil smoke"Smoking hot" was a practical gauge for lard and beef drippings, which begin to smoke not far above frying temperature. A neutral modern oil — peanut, canola, safflower — smokes well past the point where the coating burns. Use a thermometer and hold 365-375F.
- Frying timeFour or five minutes suits whole smelts, small pan fish, or steaks around three-quarters of an inch thick. Thin fillets are done in two to three. Fish is cooked at 145F internal, when the flesh has just lost its translucency.
- Season the fish, not just the coatingThe original mentions no salt anywhere. Salt and pepper the dry fish before the egg dip, or the interior tastes flat under a well-browned crust.
- The egg dipBeaten egg alone is thick and clings unevenly. A tablespoon of water or milk per egg thins it enough to coat cleanly. A preliminary dusting of flour before the egg makes the crumb layer hold much better on wet-fleshed fish.
- Crumbs versus cornmealThe preference for stale bread crumbs is sound — they brown at a lower temperature and taste less raw than coarse meal. Fine dry crumbs, not fresh soft ones. Cornmeal gives a grittier crust and is the Southern habit rather than an inferior one.
- Unglazed paperBrown paper or newsprint, which absorbed fat where glazed or coated paper would not. Paper towels do the same job. Better still, drain on a wire rack so the underside stays crisp.
- Two or three pieces at a timeThe original states this once, and reinforces the related point about the fat being smoking hot for each lot. Each batch drops the oil temperature; crowding the kettle means the coating soaks fat instead of setting. Let the oil recover between batches.
- YieldNo quantity is given. Figure six to eight ounces of fish per person, and two to three quarts of oil in a deep pot filled no more than halfway.
Deep-fat frying called for a good deal of fat before bottled oil: several pounds of lard or drippings to fill a kettle, so the fat was commonly strained, kept in a crock, and reused. The method turns cheap small fish, the ones too bony or too little to fillet, into something substantial. Egg-and-crumb breading, called "a l'anglaise" in professional kitchens of the period, was a common American treatment for fish in the late nineteenth century, and some cookbook writers of the day preferred dried bread crumbs to cornmeal, which was cheaper and more common in rural and Southern kitchens. Unglazed paper was specified because it absorbed grease where a glazed or coated sheet would not.