Fried Fish
Wash and dry the fish; season with salt and pepper, dip in fine bread crumbs, then in beaten egg, then in bread crumbs again. Place the fish in a frying basket and fry in hot fat, preferably olive oil. Be sure that the fat is hot; test it by lowering a small piece of bread; if it browns in thirty seconds the fat is sufficiently hot. Put only a few pieces of fish in the basket at a time and remove them as soon as they are brown. Garnish with parsley and serve with Tartare sauce.
A straightforward deep-fry that assumes a frying basket, a kettle of fat, and a cook who knows what hot fat looks like. Two details are worth attention: the unusual crumb-egg-crumb order, and the bread test.
- The bread test in degreesA cube of bread browning in thirty seconds indicates fat in the region of 375F, though the test is only approximate. A thermometer removes the guesswork; hold the oil near 375F, since adding fish will pull the temperature down appreciably.
- Crumb, egg, crumbThe first light coat of crumbs dries the fish surface so the egg clings instead of sliding off. Modern practice usually substitutes flour for that first layer, which does the same job with less waste. Either way, press the final crumb coat on firmly and let the breaded fish rest ten minutes before frying.
- Olive oil for fryingThe preference for olive oil is genuine period taste, not an error, but it was for a mild refined grade. Extra-virgin oil has a lower and more variable smoke point and can taste assertive when heated. Refined olive oil, peanut oil, or a neutral vegetable oil all hold the temperature.
- Cut and timingSmall whole pan-fish or fillets no more than three-quarters of an inch thick suit this method: three to four minutes total, until the crust is deep gold. Thicker pieces brown outside before the center is done. Fish is cooked at 145F, when the flesh has just lost its translucency.
- Why only a few piecesCrowding the basket collapses the oil temperature, and cool oil is absorbed rather than repelled, which is what produces greasy fried fish. Let the oil recover to temperature between batches.
- DrainingDrain on a rack set over a tray, not on a folded towel or paper. Fish resting on an absorbent surface steams its own underside and the crust goes soft.
- Tartare sauceThe period sauce is a mayonnaise made with raw yolk, beaten with capers, gherkins, onion and parsley. Commercial mayonnaise as a base avoids the raw-egg question entirely and takes the same additions.
- YieldFigure six to eight ounces of fish per person as a main course; the recipe scales by weight rather than by count.
Deep-frying in a wire basket is often said to have become a standard home technique in American and British kitchens once cast-iron or enameled fry kettles with fitted baskets were widely sold in the late nineteenth century, and cookbooks of that generation give the bread-cube test almost word for word, since a household thermometer for fat was still uncommon. The egg-and-crumb coating is older and French in descent — paner a l'anglaise — and it arrives here with its usual partner: sauce tartare, a caper-and-pickle mayonnaise whose name is generally traced to a nineteenth-century French fashion for labeling sharply seasoned dishes "Tartare." The recipe recommends olive oil over lard or drippings.