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Fried Whitebait
Wash the fish, drain well on a wire sieve, dry them in a soft cloth, and then drop them, when quite dry, on to a well-floured cloth, rolling each fish carefully in it. Put them immediately into a frying basket, dip them into extremely hot lard, hold it there until the fish is crisp, which will be before it browns, take it out while still white, and serve as quickly as possible on a napkin laid on a hot dish, and garnish with fried parsley, and quarters of lemon. Serve with them cayenne, grated lemon peel and thin slices of brown bread and butter.
A three-minute dish whose success is decided before the fish ever touches the fat. The original assumes a deep kettle of lard and a cook who can plate instantly.
- What whitebait isNot a species but the fry of herring, sprat and related fish, eaten whole -- heads, tails, bones and all. Frozen whitebait is sold in Mediterranean and Asian markets; fresh smelt or the smallest sprats or silverfish stand in well, though larger fish need a few seconds more.
- The hinge: drynessWet fish steam inside their coating and slump together into a mass. Drain, then pat in a cloth until the skins feel tacky rather than slick, and flour only at the moment of frying so the coating stays powdery.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature; "extremely hot lard" means fat hot enough to crisp before it colours, generally reckoned at around 370-390F. Below that the fish absorb fat and go limp, and crispness should arrive before any browning -- likely well under two minutes. A thermometer helps, since a small basket of cold fish drops the temperature fast.
- FatThe recipe specifies lard, which gives a clean flavour; any refined oil with a high smoke point works. You need enough depth for the fish to float free -- at least three inches in a heavy pot, filled no more than halfway.
- Small batchesFry a large handful at a time and let the fat recover between batches. Crowding is what turns whitebait into a single fried cake. Drain on paper or a rack, salt at once, and send the plates out immediately; they lose their crispness within a couple of minutes.
- Fried parsleyDry the sprigs thoroughly and lower them into the fat for about ten seconds off the heat -- wet parsley spits violently. They should stay bright green and turn brittle.
- Yield and serviceReckon 4 to 6 ounces of fish per person as a first course, so roughly a pound to a pound and a half for four. The napkin under the fish absorbs stray fat; the recipe's accompaniments are cayenne, grated lemon peel, lemon quarters and thin brown bread and butter.
Whitebait was a London dish before it was a New York one. Through the nineteenth century the taverns of Greenwich and Blackwall served the tiny fish netted from the Thames each spring, and the annual Ministerial Whitebait Dinner -- generally traced to gatherings held near Dagenham in the early 1800s and later moved to Greenwich -- fixed the dish in the public mind as a season and a ritual rather than merely a fry. Oscar Tschirky's inclusion of it among the Waldorf's kitchen recipes in the 1890s reflects how thoroughly American luxury hotels borrowed from the English and French repertoire: the fish arrived at market too small to fillet, so the whole point of the preparation is the contrast of a brittle floured shell against a soft interior, eaten by the forkful with lemon. The insistence on taking the fish out white, before it browns, is the mark of a professional kitchen -- browning means the fry have overcooked and dried.