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Sponge Cake (INGREDIENTS for medium-sized)
INGREDIENTS for medium-sized cake. lb. of loaf sugar, not quite 1/4 pint of water, 5 eggs, 1 lemon, 1/2 lb. of flour, 1/4 teaspoonful of carbonate of soda.
AVERAGE COST, 9d.
SPRING SOUP.
Sprats. INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 persons. 2 lbs. of sprats, a little flour.
AVERAGE COST, 2d. per lb.
Sprats should be cooked very fresh, which can be ascertained by their bright and sparkling eyes. Wipe them dry; fasten them in rows by a skewer run through the eyes; dredge with flour, and broil them on a gridiron over a nice clear fire. The gridiron should be rubbed with suet. Serve very hot.
TIME.-3 or 4 minutes.
SEASONABLE from November to March.
What survives here in full is a method for broiled sprats: whole small fish, floured, and grilled hard and fast. The hinge is heat and speed — three or four minutes total, and only on fish that are genuinely fresh.
- Sprats and substitutesSprats are small members of the herring family, usually 3-5 inches long, sold whole and ungutted. Fresh sardines, smelts or very small herring behave the same way under a grill.
- Judging freshnessThe bright, sparkling eye is still the right test, along with firm flesh, red gills and a clean sea smell. Oily fish of this size go rancid quickly, so buy and cook the same day.
- The gridironA gridiron was a rack of iron bars set over open coals. A ridged cast-iron grill pan over high heat, or an overhead broiler with the fish close to the element, gives the equivalent fierce dry heat.
- Rubbed with suetBeef suet was rubbed on the hot bars to stop the skin sticking. Any high-smoke-point fat does the job — oil the fish rather than the pan if using a broiler.
- SkeweringRunning a skewer through the eyes, as the recipe directs, keeps a row of fish together so they can be turned in one motion. Two flat skewers, one near the heads and one near the tails, are steadier than one.
- TimingThree to four minutes total, turned once, for fish of this size. The flour should be dry and lightly coloured and the skin blistered; longer and the flesh dries out.
- Yield and servingTwo pounds serves four as a first course or light supper. Serve with lemon, cayenne, and brown bread and butter — sprats are eaten whole, bones and all.
- SeasonalityThe November-to-March window reflects the British sprat fishery rather than any rule of cookery; frozen or imported fish are available year round.
Sprats were among the cheapest fish sold in Victorian Britain — Beeton's twopence a pound puts them well below almost anything else in the book — and they were a staple of London street selling and working-class winter meals, hawked from barrows during the autumn and winter fishery in the Thames estuary and along the East Anglian coast. Because they are small and oily, they need no cleaning or filleting and cook through in minutes, which made them ideal for households with a coal range and no time; the same qualities made them a favourite for smoking, and smoked sprats remain a Baltic and North Sea speciality. The insistence on the bright eye is a fishmonger's test of long standing, and a sound one for oily fish, whose flesh deteriorates faster than that of white fish.