No. 1310

Whitebait Fried Greenwich Style and Deviled

Blanchaille Frite a la Mode de Greenwich et a la Diable

The season for whitebait is June, July, and August; it somewhat resembles the small coalfish.

Whitebait Fried.-Lay the fish on ice for twenty minutes previous to serving; roll them in a towel with a handful of flour; shake and then toss them in a very coarse sieve to remove the superfluous flour; plunge them into very hot frying fat. One minute will suffice to cook them; drain and sprinkle over with salt and serve.

Whitebait, Greenwich Style.-The fry whitebait is to dry them in a towel to absorb all their moisture, then roll them in flour, and fry in very hot frying fat; when crisp, drain on a napkin and dress on a very hot dish. Send to the table accompanied with slices of brown or white bread cut very thin and buttered, also quartered lemons; serve at the same time a pepper-caster containing cayenne pepper.

Deviled Whitebait.-Dip them in milk, lay them on a dish containing mustard and cayenne pepper, then in cracker dust, and fry in very white beef kidney suet, drain, and salt. Dress on a napkin with fried parsley on top. Serve separately, slices of brown or fresh graham bread cut exceedingly thin and buttered.

← No. 1309 Weakfish a la Pontigny Shad, Herring & Mackerel No. 1311 Whitefish a la Gerhardi →

For the Modern Kitchen

Three treatments of one ingredient, all built on the same principle: dry fish, dry flour, very hot fat, one minute. The recipe assumes a fish that is hard to buy in the United States today.

The fish itselfWhitebait in the English sense means young herring and sprat, netted in the Thames estuary and eaten whole — head, bones and all. Fresh whitebait is rarely sold in North America; frozen whitebait from Europe or New Zealand, or very small fresh smelt, sand eels or anchovies, stand in. Nothing longer than about two inches will cook through in the time given.
Moisture is the hingeThe first two versions begin by drying the fish, and Ranhofer means it. Damp whitebait steam rather than crisp, clump into a mass, and make the fat spit violently. The towel-and-flour roll followed by a shake in a coarse sieve is the period method for a thin, even coating — the coarse mesh lets the surplus flour fall through; a colander shaken hard does the same job.
Fat temperatureThe book never quantifies "very hot frying fat"; roughly 375-400F is the usual modern equivalent. Below that the minute is not enough and the fish absorb oil. Fry in small batches — a large handful dropped at once drops the temperature and defeats the whole exercise.
Beef kidney suetThe deviled version calls for very white beef kidney suet, which would be rendered before frying; the recipe's emphasis is on its whiteness. Rendered beef fat is still sold as dripping or tallow; refined peanut or a neutral high-heat oil behaves the same way in the pan.
Cracker dustFinely crushed dry soda or water crackers, sieved. Panko is coarser and will not cling to fish this small; use plain fine dry breadcrumbs or crushed unsalted crackers put through a sieve.
The mustard and cayenneThe recipe does not say which mustard; dry mustard powder mixed with cayenne and spread on a plate is the likely reading, the milk-dipped fish being rolled through it before the crumb. Prepared wet mustard would make the coating slide off.
ServingThin brown bread and butter with lemon and a cayenne caster is the Greenwich tavern service, not a garnish — the bread is meant to be eaten with the fish. The recipe gives no quantities; about 4 oz of whitebait per person as a first course serves four from a pound.
Fried parsleySmall dry sprigs dropped into the same hot fat for a few seconds until they stop hissing. They must be bone dry going in; wet parsley in 380F fat erupts.

A Little History

Whitebait dinners at Greenwich were a fixture of nineteenth-century English public life: taverns like the Ship and the Trafalgar served the tiny Thames fry through the summer, and Cabinet ministers held an annual whitebait dinner there at the close of the parliamentary session, a custom generally traced to the early 1800s and kept up until late in the century. Charles Ranhofer, chef of Delmonico's, sets the dish down here with the full ritual intact — brown bread and butter, quartered lemon, a caster of cayenne on the table. The deviled version, with its mustard-and-cayenne coat, belongs to the same Victorian appetite for peppered savouries that produced deviled kidneys and deviled bones.