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Whitebait, to Dress
INGREDIENTS.- Whitebait, a little flour, hot lard, seasoning of salt.
This fish should be put into iced water as soon as bought, unless they are cooked WHITEBAIT. immediately. Drain them from the water in a colander, and have ready a nice clean dry cloth, over which put 2 good handfuls of flour. Toss in the whitebait, shake them lightly in the cloth, and put them in a wicker-sieve to take away the superfluous TIME.-3 minutes.
SEASONABLE from April to August.
A very plain treatment: ice-cold fish, a dry flour coat, and a brief plunge into deep fat. Everything depends on the fish being dry and the fat being properly hot.
- The hingeWhitebait must go into the fat cold, dry and separated, and the fat must be hot enough to set them instantly; the book gives no temperature, but a brisk deep-frying heat (roughly 350-375F) answers. Damp fish or slack fat gives a pale, clumped mass rather than crisp individuals.
- Iced waterThe recipe orders the fish into iced water as soon as they are bought, unless they go straight into the pan; the chilling keeps them fresh and firm enough to survive flouring and frying whole. Drain them only at the last moment.
- Flouring in a clothThe cloth both dries and coats in one movement. A large bowl or a paper bag works the same way. Shake off every loose grain, or the fat will fill with burnt flour.
- Hot lardLard was standard for deep frying here and gives a clean flavour, but any fat with a high smoke point serves. You need enough depth for the fish to float freely.
- Three minutesThat is generous for fish an inch or two long. Two minutes or less is usually enough; they are done the moment they stop hissing hard and turn pale gold.
- Batch sizeFry small handfuls. A large drop of cold fish crashes the fat temperature and the batch steams instead of crisping.
- ServingSalt the moment they come out of the fat. The recipe seasons with salt alone, though lemon and brown bread and butter are the traditional accompaniment; serve at once.
- Sourcing"Whitebait" covers the fry of herring, sprat and similar species. Buy them whole and frozen if fresh are unavailable; they are eaten entire, heads, bones and all, so no cleaning is required.
Whitebait was a London fish before it was a national dish. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the tiny fry were netted in the Thames estuary and eaten at riverside taverns at Greenwich and Blackwall, where the annual "whitebait dinner" attended by Cabinet ministers became a fixture of the parliamentary calendar until late in the century. Naturalists argued for decades over whether whitebait was a distinct species; it is in fact the young of herring, sprat and other small fish taken together, which is why the size and the season vary. The April-to-August window given here reflects when the fry ran in catchable numbers, and the insistence on ice reflects how quickly so small a fish spoils on a warm cart between the river and the kitchen.