Fried Whitebait
From Cassell's dictionary of cookery, 1892
Serves 1
Cook the whitebait directly after flouring to avoid it becoming flabby.
Presented as published in 1892. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation below, not the original instructions.
A modern interpretation · AI-generated from the original record
Ingredients
Method
As published
This recipe was extracted from Cassell's dictionary of cookery (1892) by Cassell & Company, page 50. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.
flour an inch deep. The whitebait, when thus dosed in flour, is put into a large sifter or very coarse, open cane sieve — something like that used for sifting oats — and shaken : all the loose flour is thus shaken ofi". The floured and sifted whitebait is then put in a wire basket, and plunged into boiling fat. Unless the fat be really boiling, and sufficiently deep to cover the fish, it is of no use. Half a minute or a little more is quite sufficient to cook the whitebait, which must be sent to table instantly. Recollect, however, the whitebait must be cooked directly it is floured. It is no use flouring the whitebait and putting it by ; if you wait any time you will have it flabby and spoilt. The one point to be remembered is expedition. Take care also that the whitebait is not in a broken state. Plain whitebait is generally followed with a little devilled whitebait. There are two kinds, called black devil and red devil. The correct way to devil whitebait is to take out the whitebait basket in the middle of cooking, and pepper the fish, using mixed black pepper and salt for a black-devil, and mixed cayenne pepper and salt for a red-devil. The basket should then be re-plunged into the boiling fat
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