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Panfish Sautes
Procure six medium, very fresh, fat panfish. Neatly wipe and place on a plate with three tablespoons cold milk, a teaspoon salt and half teaspoon white pepper; mix a little and gently roll in the mixture, then lightly turn in flour.
Heat three tablespoons lard in a frying pan, add the fish, one beside another, and fry for five minutes on each side, or until a nice golden colour. Lift up with the skimmer, drain well on a cloth, dress on a large, hot dish, decorate with parsley greens and six sections of sound lemon, spread one tablespoon of melted butter over and serve.
A plain sauté of small whole fish, and the method still works exactly as written. A few of the terms and proportions need translating.
- What a panfish isA panfish is any small freshwater fish that fits whole in a frying pan — perch, bluegill, crappie, sunfish, small trout. "Medium" is not defined here; something in the region of a half-pound each, gutted and scaled, heads on or off as you prefer, suits the method. Small whole sea fish such as sand dab, sardine or fresh anchovy behave the same way.
- The milk is a binder, not a soakThree tablespoons of milk for six fish barely coats them; that is deliberate. Roll and flour immediately rather than letting them sit, or the flour turns to paste and slides off in the pan.
- Flour lightly, then shake"Lightly turn in flour" means a bare film. Excess flour scorches in the fat before the fish is done and gives a bitter, mottled crust rather than an even gold.
- Lard and heatThree tablespoons is a shallow sauté, not a fry. Any neutral fat with a high smoke point works — lard, clarified butter, or oil. The pan should be hot enough that the fish sizzles on contact; whole fish laid into lukewarm fat stick.
- Five minutes a side is for a thick fishThat timing suits a fish an inch or more through the shoulder. A thin bluegill or sand dab is done in two to three minutes a side. The flesh should part from the backbone cleanly at the thickest point.
- One layer only"One beside another" is the instruction that matters. Crowding drops the pan temperature and steams the coating soft. Cook in two batches and hold the first in a 200F oven.
- Skimmer and clothA slotted fish slice does the lifting. Drain on paper towel rather than a cloth, and only for a moment — small fried fish go limp if they sit.
- YieldSix fish serves three as a main course, six as a first course. The tablespoon of melted butter poured over at the table is the finish; add a squeeze of the lemon rather than serving it dry.
"Panfish" is an American term of convenience rather than a zoological category — it simply means a fish small enough to cook whole in a skillet, and in practice covers the sunfishes, perch and small catfish that filled inland creels before commercial fishing reached the interior. The recipe's own instruction is to "procure six medium, very fresh, fat panfish", a verb that implies obtaining or buying rather than catching. The treatment itself is close to classical French sauté meunière — flour, butter, lemon, parsley, with the milk dip a common variant rather than part of the formula — an approach that appears across nineteenth-century European cookery for any small fish and that is still recognizable in kitchens today.