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Omelette with Whitebait
Crack eight fresh eggs in a bowl, add a half gill milk, half teaspoon salt, two saltspoons pepper, and sharply beat up with fork for two minutes. Cut off heads and tails of three ounces fresh whitebait, wash and thoroughly drain on a cloth. Thoroughly heat a tablespoon melted butter in a frying pan, drop in the whitebait and briskly fry for five minutes, tossing them meanwhile. Sprinkle over two saltspoons salt, then add the eggs, briskly stir for two minutes with fork and let rest for half a minute; fold up the opposite sides to meet in the centre, let rest for one minute, turn on a hot dish and serve.
A plain French-style rolled omelette built around a handful of tiny fish. The measurements are turn-of-the-century American professional shorthand, and two of the timings need adjusting.
- Half a gillA gill is 4 fluid ounces, so half a gill of milk is 1/4 cup. That is generous for eight eggs; 2 tablespoons gives a firmer omelette that folds more cleanly.
- SaltspoonsA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. Two saltspoons is 1/2 teaspoon, so the recipe calls for a full teaspoon of salt across the eggs and the fish. Whitebait are already saline, and half that total is plenty.
- Whitebait, and what to buyWhitebait here means the fry of herring or sprat, sold whole and eaten whole, bones and all. Fresh are seasonal; frozen work if drained hard and patted dry. New Zealand whitebait is a different fish (galaxiid) under catch restriction, and small sprats or silverfish are the practical substitute.
- Skip the trimmingCutting the heads and tails from 3 oz of fish an inch long is a laborious refinement. Modern practice is to leave them intact and eat them whole.
- Five minutes is too longFish this small cook through in 60 to 90 seconds in hot butter. Five minutes turns them to dry splinters. Fry until they firm up and just begin to colour, then pour in the eggs.
- Pan and foldEight eggs need a 10 to 12 inch pan. If your largest is smaller, make two omelettes of four eggs rather than one thick one, which will not set through before the underside browns.
- The resting stepsThe half-minute and one-minute rests before and after folding appear to let the base set into a skin that holds the shape while the interior stays soft. Keep the heat moderate during them.
- YieldServes four as a light main course, or six to eight as one course of a longer meal.
Whitebait built its reputation on the Thames, where the fry were netted below London and fried whole; the annual Ministerial Whitebait Dinner at Greenwich, traditionally dated to the early nineteenth century, kept the fish in the public eye as a seasonal delicacy well into the Victorian period. By the time The International Cook Book appeared in 1906, Alexander Filippini — long associated with Delmonico's in New York — was writing for cooks who expected European luxuries on an American table, and whitebait was exactly that: cheap in itself, but fussy to source and traditionally deep-fried in a heap rather than folded into eggs. Putting it in an omelette is the professional kitchen's answer to a small quantity of something expensive, and the instruction to trim each fish head and tail belongs to a world with a brigade of hands in the kitchen.