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Whitebatt, Mrs. Root
Neatly wash in fresh water a pound very fresh whitebait, thoroughly wipe, place in a bowl and season with a half teaspoon salt and two teaspoons Oriental curry powder. Gently but thoroughly shuffle until all the seasoning evenly adheres to fish and let rest for thirty minutes, being shuffle again, infuse for ten minutes, then carefully strain on a sieve. Mix and spread on a pie plate a pound flour with four ounces cracker dust, then drop in the whitebait and rapidly turn over in mixed flour, so that when taken up it will not stick together. Place them in frying basket, briskly shake to remove superfluous flour, then fry in very hot fat for five minutes or until a nice golden colour, remove and thoroughly drain. Mix two saltspoons salt with two saltspoons Oriental curry powder and sprinkle over fish, gently shake and dress on a hot dish with folded napkin. Arrange six thin strips lean bacon broiled one and a half minutes on each side around the whitebaits, decorate dish with six quarters of lemon and send to table with thin slices toasted Boston brown bread.
As the Pahariya curry powder devised by the author met with success surpassing all expectation, it will doubtless soon be generally known and obtainable almost anywhere. As it has only just been put on the market, without any idea of exploiting the article in this book it will be necessary to state where it may be obtained at present, as follows: H. Hicks & Son, 1179 Broadway, near 28th St.; Charles & Co., Grand Central Station; G. L. Jacquin, 430 5th Ave.; A. L. Cella, 888-889 6th Ave. For further particulars address the author, A. Fillippini, 148 W. 68th St.
A deep-fried whitebait dish from a chef who could not resist advertising his own curry powder mid-recipe. The instructions are garbled in places, and the frying time is the one number to ignore.
- Fry timeFive minutes will turn whitebait into brittle splinters. Whole fish this small are done in 60-90 seconds at 375F, two minutes at most for a heavy coating; pull them the moment they turn pale gold.
- Fat temperature"Very hot fat" is unquantified in the original; in practice aim for around 375F. Below about 350F the flour coating absorbs oil and the fish steam rather than crisp; fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- SaltspoonA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon, so the finishing mix is 1/2 teaspoon salt with 1/2 teaspoon curry powder. The half teaspoon in the marinade is a standard measure.
- The garbled marinade"Let rest for thirty minutes, being shuffle again, infuse for ten minutes" is a printer's mangling. Read it as: toss with the seasoning, rest 30 minutes, toss again, rest 10 minutes more, then drain in a sieve.
- Cracker dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, sieved. Unseasoned cracker meal or panko ground fine in a processor does the same job; it adds crunch that flour alone will not.
- A pound of flourThis is a dredging bed, not an ingredient you eat. Most of it is shaken off and discarded, so scale it to your pan rather than weighing out a full pound for a pound of fish.
- The curry powderFillippini's "Pahariya" blend and the Broadway grocers that stocked it are long gone. Any good Madras-style curry powder works; the marinade is doing the seasoning, so use one you would eat straight.
- WhitebaitWhitebait means the tiny fry of herring, sprat or similar, eaten whole, heads and all. Frozen whitebait is sold at fishmongers and Asian markets; thaw fully and dry very well or the coating will slide off in the fat.
- Boston brown breadA steamed, molasses-sweetened rye and cornmeal loaf, usually sold in cans in the US. Sliced thin and toasted it is a deliberate sweet-dark counterpoint to the curried fish; pumpernickel is the nearest substitute.
- YieldA pound of whitebait with the bacon, lemon and toast serves three or four as a first course, two as a light main.
Alexander Filippini is generally said to have spent many years as a chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The International Cook Book (1906, with later printings) is his attempt at a global inventory of dishes for American households. Fried whitebait itself is an English institution: the tiny fish, floured and plunged into hot fat, were the centrepiece of the Greenwich whitebait dinners held on the Thames through the nineteenth century, and they reached New York menus as a fashionable savoury of the same period. What is unusual here is the curry, and the sales pitch attached to it. The passage naming four Manhattan grocers who stocked Filippini's own "Pahariya" curry powder, complete with his home address on West 68th Street, is a reminder that celebrity chefs were monetising their names long before television.