Fried Whitebait

Ingredients

• a deep frying-pan full of boiling lard
• an inch thick of flour
• one minute will more than suffice to cook it
• black pepper in the middle of cooking
• black and cayenne mixed
• thin brown bread and butter should be handed round with it
• some lemon cut into quarters

Method

1. 1

   Prepare a deep frying-pan with boiling lard.

2. 2

   Coat the whitebait in flour and shake off excess.

3. 3

   Plunge the floured whitebait into the hot lard for about one minute.

4. 4

   Drain on a hot cloth and serve immediately.

5. 5

   Optionally, sprinkle with black or cayenne pepper while cooking.

6. 6

   Serve with thin brown bread and butter and lemon quarters.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Common-sense papers on cookery (1880) by A. G. Payne, page 94. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

a deep frying-pan full of boiling lard ; in order to insure the lard being sufficiently hot, let a drop of water fall into it and see if it hisses ; next have ready a wire whitebait-basket, then throw the whitebait into some fine dry flour on a cloth ; don’t be afraid of having too much flour, as in these water-side hotels the flour is an inch thick ; next shake the whitebait free of the flour in a wide sieve, something like what is used for sifting oats ; this is for the purpose of getting rid as much as possible of the flour, to avoid the whitebait being pasty and clammy. Next, having put this floured whitebait into the wire basket, plunge it into the boiling fat — one minute will more than suffice to cook it — throw it on to a hot cloth for a few seconds to drain, and serve it very quickly. Whitebait sent to Fish Dinners. 231 table properly should burn the mouth with fire-heat. Do not try and cook too many at a time, as they are liable to stick together. Also shake the wire basket a little in cooking them, for the purpose of avoiding this sticking-process ; and when they are thrown on to the cloth, if you see one or two sticking together, sepa- rate them. Properly cooked whitebait should be crisp, but at the same time slightly soft in the middle, when eaten. There are two kinds of devilled whitebait — black devil and red devil ; the former consisting of adding black pepper in the middle of cooking ; and the latter, black and cayenne mixed. Have the pepper, whichever is fancied, ready in a pepper-box, lift the whitebait-basket out of the boiling fat, shake it and pepper the whitebait at the same time, put the basket back into the fat for a few seconds, and then turn the whitebait out on to the cloth. It will be found best to send up the whitebait in two dishes, first the ordinary, second the devilled; thin brown bread and butter should be handed round with it, besides some lemon cut into quarters

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.