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Fried Smelts
Clean and dry the fish, roll them in beaten egg and then in finely grated breadcrumbs; dredging a little flour and salt over them. Put a good-sized lump of butter into a fryingpan, and when hot put in the smelts and fry them quickly. Drain the fish when richly browned, place them on an ornamental dish-paper or a folded napkin on a hot dish garnished with fried parsley and serve.
A plain shallow-fry that assumes a cook already knows how smelts behave. The points below cover the details Oscar leaves unsaid.
- The fishSmelts are small silvery fish, usually 4-7 inches, sold whole and often already gutted. Rainbow smelt are the common market fish in North America; European sold as "sparling" are the same idea. Very small ones are eaten head, bones and all, larger ones are usually gutted and the head left on or removed to taste.
- Dry means dryThis is the hinge. Smelts hold water in their skin, and damp fish will steam the coating loose and spit in the butter. Pat them thoroughly on paper towel and let them sit a few minutes uncovered before breading.
- Breading orderThe original has egg, then crumbs, then a dusting of flour and salt over the outside. Modern practice is flour first, then egg, then crumbs, which grips far better. Either way, season the flour rather than the finished coating.
- Butter alone will burn"A good-sized lump of butter" in a hot pan was a working amount, but whole butter browns fast at frying heat. Clarified butter, or butter cut with a neutral oil, holds up through a full batch. Fry at about 350-375F, in batches, two to three minutes a side.
- Fried parsleyFlat-leaf or curly parsley, bone dry, dropped into the hot fat for ten to fifteen seconds until it stops sizzling and turns brittle and vivid green. Wet parsley in hot fat erupts, so shake and blot it first.
- The dish-paperAn ornamental dish-paper is a doily-like sheet of pierced paper used under fried food to absorb fat at table. A folded napkin does the same job; so does a rack, which keeps the underside crisp better than either.
- Yield and servingFigure 6-8 smelts per person as a first course, more as a main. Lemon wedges and a tartare or rémoulade are the standard accompaniments, though Oscar names neither.
Smelts were a cheap, abundant, seasonal fish on both American coasts, running upriver in enormous numbers in early spring, and dip-netting the run was a public event in many towns. That abundance is why a fish that reads as a delicacy on a Waldorf menu was also a working-class supper in New England. Oscar Tschirky's The Cook Book by "Oscar" of the Waldorf (1896) is largely a reference collection rather than a set of tested formulas, which is why the instruction here is so compressed: it assumes a professional or a competent household cook who needs the outline, not the lesson. The presentation on a folded napkin with fried parsley is straight out of the French service of the period, where fried fish was generally sent up dry, on absorbent linen or paper, and greened with parsley crisped in the same fat.