Fried Whitebait
flour lemon slices Dry whitebait in towel; sprinkle with salt and pepper; dredge napkin with flour. Shake whitebait in napkin until each little fish is covered with flour. Dip frying basket in hot fat; cover bottom of frying basket with floured whitebait; plunge into hot fat; fry until a golden brown; drain on brown paper. Serve on napkin. Garnish with lemon and parsley. Brown bread is served with these fish. 1 quart oysters 1 cup fine bread crumbs 1 teaspoon salt 1/4 cup butter
A deep-fry with almost nothing to it: the whole method is dry fish, floured fast, cooked hot and brief. Note that the ingredient fragments at the top and bottom of the page belong elsewhere — the trailing quart of oysters, crumbs, salt and butter is the head of the next recipe in the section and has nothing to do with whitebait.
- The hinge: bone-dry fishWhitebait carry a lot of surface water and will steam rather than crisp if it is not blotted away. Dry them thoroughly in a towel before flouring, and flour them only moments before they go into the fat, or the coating turns to paste.
- Fat temperatureThe book says only "hot fat" and gives no figure. Fish this small want fat hot enough to brown them in a minute or two; too cool and they come out greasy and limp, too hot and the flour colours before the fish is through.
- Small batchesA single layer in the basket, as written. Crowding drops the fat temperature and the fish clump into a raft. Let the fat recover between batches.
- Dipping the basketLowering the empty basket into the fat first is not decoration — it keeps the floured fish from sticking to cold wire. Worth doing with any modern basket too.
- What whitebait areWhitebait are the fry of herring, sprat and related fish, an inch or two long, eaten whole — head, bones, tail and all. Frozen whitebait are the practical option now; thaw fully and dry hard, since they release more water than fresh.
- DrainingBrown paper was the standard drain of the period. A wire rack over a tray works better, as paper towel traps steam under the fish and softens the crust.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity; a quarter-pound or so per person is a common allowance as a first course, more as a main. Lemon, parsley and brown bread are the accompaniments the recipe names.
Fried whitebait was an English restaurant set piece before it was an American one, associated above all with the taverns along the Thames at Greenwich and Blackwall, where whitebait were netted in the tidal river and served immediately; the annual "whitebait dinner" attended by cabinet ministers is the best-known survival of the custom. American cookbooks of this period carried the dish partly on that prestige. The instructions here — flour shaken on in a napkin, service on a folded napkin, brown bread alongside — follow that Anglo-restaurant convention.