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Pan Fish Fries
Small fish are best for the pan, because they can be fried whole. But many people prefer the pan frying method for some of the lean larger fish, which must, of course, be cut into convenient pieces. Dry thoroughly in a folded towel. Mix flour, salt and pepper, lay fish on a plate and dredge thickly on one side with the mixture, then turn over and dredge the other side. Have plenty of butter or bacon fat well heated in pan, put in the fish so they do not touch each other, and fry rather slowly until half done and crusty. Turn and cook on the other side. Take up on a hot platter and garnish with grilled tomatoes or stuffed peppers. Eat with tartare sauce, lemon, or mayonnaise. A neat way to fix small fish for a festive fry is to lay them in the pan, heads toward the center, tails pointing outward. Fill the open spaces with smaller fish and when ready to turn, place a plate over them and invert the pan. The fish will come out whole on the plate in the original pattern. Add more fat to pan, quickly heat, and slide the fish from the plate back into the pan in the same wheel formation. Finish frying. Set plate over them again, invert pan, and they are on the plate ready for passing around.
A straightforward camp or kitchen fry, with the useful trick of inverting the whole panful onto a plate so small fish keep their arrangement. A few points make it work as written.
- Dry the fish properlyThis is the hinge. Flour will not adhere to a wet surface and wet fish steams rather than crusts. Pat dry inside and out, and dredge just before the fish goes into the fat.
- "Rather slowly" means medium"Rather slowly" means moderate -- medium heat on the burner rather than a fierce one; the book gives no temperature. Whole panfish need long enough for the flesh at the backbone to set; too hot a pan browns the coating before the interior is done.
- Fat depth and choiceButter alone scorches at frying heat. Bacon fat, or butter cut with a neutral oil or clarified butter, gives the same flavour without burning. Enough fat to come a third of the way up the fish is right for pan frying.
- DonenessSmall whole fish of 6 to 8 inches take roughly 3 to 4 minutes a side; the flesh should be opaque and lift cleanly from the backbone. Thick fillets of larger lean fish go 4 to 5 minutes a side, to an internal 145F.
- Do not crowdKeeping the fish from touching helps them brown rather than steam. Fry in batches and hold finished fish uncovered in a 200F oven rather than stacking them.
- The wheel trickIt works best in a heavy skillet with a plate that sits inside the rim, and with fish of even thickness. Use oven mitts and pour off excess fat before inverting, since hot fat will run to the plate edge.
- Flour proportionsThe original gives none. About a cup of flour with a teaspoon of salt and a half teaspoon of pepper coats four to six small fish.
- YieldTwo small panfish per person, or 6 to 8 oz of fillet, with the tomatoes or peppers alongside.
Pan frying dredged in seasoned flour is among the plainest treatments of freshwater fish in American cooking, and it is as much associated with fishing camps as with formal kitchens: the fish is cleaned, rolled, and cooked in the fat that happens to be at hand, often bacon drippings. The garnishes of grilled tomatoes and stuffed peppers and the offer of tartare sauce or mayonnaise show a period habit of dressing such food for company. "Pan fish" is an American angler's term, attested by the nineteenth century, for small fish sized to fit a skillet whole -- perch, sunfish, crappie, bluegill.