Fried Smelts
Clean the smelts, leaving on the heads and tails. Sprinkle well with salt, pepper and flour; dip in egg, then in fine bread crumbs, and fry in deep fat. Garnish with parsley and slices of lemon and serve with Tartare sauce.
A plain breaded fry that depends almost entirely on fat temperature and on the fish being bone-dry before it meets the egg. Mrs. Fryer assumes a cook who knows both.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature and does not name the fat; period frying fat would most likely have been lard or a vegetable shortening. Roughly 375F suits this kind of fry: below about 350F the crumb coat absorbs fat and slumps; above 390F the crumbs darken before the fish is set. Smelts are small enough that 2 to 3 minutes is plenty.
- Cleaning smeltsSlit the belly, draw the viscera with a thumbnail, and rinse. Heads and tails stay on, as instructed, because they crisp and make the fish easy to pick up. The backbone of a small smelt is soft enough to eat, and traditionally is.
- Dry the fishThe single thing that decides whether the coating stays on. Blot the smelts thoroughly after rinsing; residual water under the flour turns to steam and lifts the crumbs off in the fat.
- Sprinkle with flourThis is the standard three-stage breading compressed into one line: seasoned flour, then beaten egg (thin it with a spoonful of water or milk), then fine dry crumbs. Press the crumbs on and let the coated fish rest ten minutes before frying.
- Size and yieldSmelts commonly run about 5 to 8 inches. The recipe gives no quantities; as a rough guide, figure 4 to 6 fish per person, or about 1/3 lb per serving. Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
- Tartare sauceThe period version is mayonnaise with chopped capers, pickles, parsley and a little onion, made fresh rather than bought. If you use raw-yolk mayonnaise, use pasteurized eggs.
- DrainingOnto a rack rather than paper if you can. Smelts stacked on absorbent paper steam their own undersides soft within a minute or two.
Smelts were once so abundant along the North Atlantic that they were a cheap late-winter fish, sold by the pound and eaten whole, bones and all, which is why American cookbooks of the 1880s through the 1930s so often carry a fried-smelt recipe without pausing to explain what a smelt is. The name comes from an Old English word for the fish, and the family's characteristic cucumber-like smell when very fresh was often said to be the test of quality at market. Mrs. Fryer's treatment -- egged, crumbed, deep-fried, and sent out with parsley, lemon and tartare sauce -- is the standard restaurant presentation of the period, borrowed from French *friture* and applied to whatever small fish was cheapest that week; whitebait, sand dabs and small perch all got the same handling in the same chapter.