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To Fry Smelts
181. They should not be washed more than is necessary to clean them; dry them in a cloth, then lightly flour them, but shake it off; dip them into plenty of egg, then into bread-crumbs grated fine, and plunge them into a good pan of boiling lard; continue gently boiling, and a few minutes will make them a bright yellow brown; take care not to take off the light roughness of the crumbs, or their beauty will be lost, and for this purpose use the wire frame (see fig. 132).
A straightforward deep-fry that depends entirely on keeping the crumb coating intact and the fat hot. Everything else is preparation.
- The hinge: don't touch the crumbsThe whole point of the instruction is that the fried crumb surface should stay rough and craggy. Lower the fish in a frying basket, lift them out in it, and drain them on a rack rather than tumbling them onto paper.
- "Boiling lard" means 350-375F"Boiling lard" is a visual cue, not a literal one: the bubbling is water escaping the fish, not the fat boiling. Modern practice for this kind of frying is roughly 350-375F; much cooler and the coating absorbs fat and slumps, much hotter and lard begins to smoke and darken. The recipe itself specifies no temperature.
- "A few minutes" is 2 to 3Smelts are small, and cook through about as fast as the crust colours, so two or three minutes at temperature is usually enough; longer and the flesh dries out while the crumb goes past yellow-brown to bitter.
- CleaningSmelts are traditionally cooked whole, head and all, and small ones are often left ungutted. If you would rather not, slit the belly and remove it, but keep rinsing to a minimum as directed; the recipe is explicit that they be dried in a cloth before flouring.
- Flour, egg, crumbsBeaten whole egg, thinned with a spoonful of water, coats more evenly than egg alone. The recipe asks for crumbs grated fine, but from stale bread rather than the uniform commercial sort or panko; the roughness it wants comes from irregular crumb.
- Fat substitutionLard was the usual fat for this and gives a clean result. Refined peanut, sunflower or rice bran oil behaves much the same way. Plain butter will not take this heat.
- Batch sizeFry in small handfuls. A pan crowded with cold fish pulls the fat temperature down sharply, and the coating soaks rather than sets.
- YieldAllow 6-8 smelts per person as a first course, closer to a dozen as a main. Serve immediately, with lemon and cayenne or a plain fried-parsley garnish.