To Fry Fish
Dry fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in fine bread crumbs, in egg, then in crumbs again, and fry in deep fat. Small fish are cooked in this way.
A bare-bones method notice rather than a recipe: the Butterick book assumed its readers knew what deep fat was and how hot it should be. The missing numbers are the temperature, the timing and the drying step.
- Fat temperatureDeep fat for small fish wants 360-375F. Cooler than that and the crumb coat soaks; hotter and the crust colours before a thick fillet is done. Use a thermometer rather than the old bread-cube test.
- "Fry in deep fat"The recipe names no fat; at this date it would commonly have been lard or a beef-suet frying fat kept in a deep iron kettle and reused. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point does the same job; you need enough depth that the fish floats free, about 2 inches.
- Dry the fish firstThe instruction to dry is the hinge of the whole method. Surface moisture lifts the breading off in the fat and drops the temperature. Blot fillets on paper and let them sit uncovered a few minutes before seasoning.
- The crumb-egg-crumb orderGoing straight to crumbs without a flour dusting works, but the first crumb layer must be pressed on firmly so the egg has something to grip. A light flouring before the first crumbs makes the coat noticeably more durable.
- Fine bread crumbsThis means dried, sieved crumbs from stale bread, closer to modern fine dry breadcrumbs than to panko. Panko gives a coarser, crisper coat if you prefer it.
- EggOne beaten egg loosened with a tablespoon of water or milk coats about a pound of fish. Undiluted egg goes on too thickly and can set into a soft layer under the crust.
- TimingSmall whole fish or thin fillets take 2-4 minutes total, until the coating is deep gold. Fry in batches; crowding the pan cools the fat and gives a greasy result.
- Draining and yieldLift onto a rack rather than piling on paper, which steams the underside. Reckon 6-8 oz of fish per person as a main course.
The Butterick Publishing Company sold dress patterns, and its cookbook of the early 1910s was aimed at the same practical middle-class housekeeper: entries are short, grouped by method, and assume a working knowledge that the text never spells out. This one is really a note on technique, filed under fish so a cook with a string of perch, smelts or small flatfish knew what to do with them. Egg-and-crumb coating was standard by the late nineteenth century and relied on dried breadcrumbs from stale loaves. Deep frying at home in this period often meant a kettle of lard or drippings that was strained and kept between uses, which may be part of why such books are insistent on drying the fish and not crowding the pan.