Fried Fish
Clean thoroughly, cut off the head, and, if large, cut out the backbone, and slice the body crosswise into five or six pieces; dip in Indian meal or wheat flour, or in a beaten egg, and then in bread crumbs (trout and perch should never be dipped in meal), put into a thick-bottomed skillet, skin side uppermost, with hot lard or drippings (never in butter, as it takes out the sweetness and gives a bad color), fry slowly, and turn when a light brown. The roe and the backbone, if previously removed, may be cut up and fried with the other pieces. A better way is to dredge the pieces in the flour, brush with beaten egg, roll in bread-crumbs, and fry in hot lard or drippings enough to completely cover them. If the fat is very hot, the fish will not absorb it, and will be delicately cooked. When brown on one side, turn over in the fat and brown the other, and when done let them drain. Slices of large fish may be cooked in the same way. Serve with tomatoe sauce or slices of lemon.
A general method rather than a fixed recipe: it covers both shallow pan-frying and deep-frying, and assumes you have bought a whole fish and will butcher it yourself. A few of its terms and its fat choices need translating.
- Indian mealCornmeal. The instruction that trout and perch "should never be dipped in meal" presumably reflects their delicate flesh, which the book prefers to coat in flour, or in the flour-egg-crumb crust.
- Lard and drippingsBoth are still sold and both work; the objection to butter is sound, since milk solids scorch well below frying temperature. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point substitutes directly.
- "If the fat is very hot"This is the hinge of the whole method. For the deep-fried version keep the fat at 350-375F; below that the crumb coating soaks and the fish steams instead of crisping. Fry in batches so the temperature does not collapse.
- Thick-bottomed skilletA heavy pan, most likely cast iron, and still the best choice for the shallow-fried version because it holds heat when cold fish goes in.
- "Fry slowly"This applies only to the first, shallow method with thick cross-cut steaks — moderate heat so the interior cooks before the coating burns. Fish is done at 145F, or when the flesh parts from the bone; steaks of an inch or so need roughly 4 minutes a side.
- Turning onceTake the instruction literally. Set the coating undisturbed until it releases from the pan, then turn a single time; repeated flipping is what strips breading off fish.
- The roe and backboneFrying the frame and roe alongside was thrift, not garnish. Roe cooks fast and firms quickly; the bones give little more than a crisp nibble.
- YieldA large fish cut into five or six pieces as directed will serve roughly three or four. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the underside stays crisp, and salt the moment it leaves the fat.
Fried fish in cornmeal is one of the oldest and most durable American cooking habits, and its presence here reflects a period when fish often meant whatever came from the nearest river: catfish, perch, trout, bass. The instruction to bone the fish and slice it crosswise into steaks suggests large freshwater fish rather than the small pan-sized fillets sold today. Note that the writer treats the flour-egg-crumb coating and deep fat as "a better way" than the plain meal dredge. Similar cautions against butter appear in other nineteenth-century American cookbooks, which borrowed freely from one another.