Whitebait

Ingredients

• the whitebait is ready
• some fine dry flour
• black pepper
• cayenne

Method

1. 1

   Dry the whitebait and plunge it into boiling fat.

2. 2

   Coat in flour, shake off excess, and fry for about 1 minute.

3. 3

   Drain on a hot cloth and serve quickly.

4. 4

   Optionally, sprinkle with black or cayenne pepper while cooking.

Nutrition per serving

As published

This recipe was extracted from Practical home cookery (1906) by A. G. Payne, page 92. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

whitebait, to which we shall come by and by. We shall now suppose the fish for frying ready on a dish on the dresser, and we will take eels, filleted sole, flounders, whitings, smelts, etc. ; now these must be all treated alike, first they must be dried, then floured, then dipped in well- beaten-up egg, then dipped in ^ne dry bread-crumbs. FISH DINNERS. m and then sprinkled over with fine bright golden bread- raspings, in order to ensure the colour being right. Suppose the cook has just sent up the flounders souchet ; let the next course be fried eels, and salmon and pickle sauce. Take the eels ready prepared and throw them into the boiling fat ; if the fat boil, four or five minutes is ample time, if the fat is deep enough to cover the fish. Take a hot vegetable dish, turn out the salmon and sauce into it, and put on the cover ; next take a clean napkin and warm it, and fold it up, and put it on a hot dish ; hold a dish-cover to the fire for a minute, and cover over the napkin ; take the eels out of the fat and put them for half a minute on to a hot coarse cloth to drain, put them on the clean napkin with a few pieces of green parsley round, and send them up with the salmon. Suppose the next course is turbot, smelts, and red mullet ; the turbot, or rather a slice of one, is supposed to be boiling in a saucepan ; take it out and put it on a cloth to drain ; take first half a dozen smelts and pop them into the fat you have just taken the eels out of j a very short time will cook them. Place the turbot on a fish-napkin, put a piece of parsley on the top of it, and place the fried smelts round the edge. The red mullet simply wants slipping off the tin on to an ordinary dish just at it is, and the next course is done. The lobster cutlets might be sent up with some fried fish instead, as we presume no one would think of having all this fish at one dinner. We there- fore now come to the whitebait, and will attempt to describe the secret of having this really delicious and delicate fish well cooked. Of course, in the first place, it is absolutely indispensable to have the fish perfectly fresh, and in an unbroken state, and it is on this account that whitebait is always had in the greatest perfection at the various hotels which overlook the river where the whitebait is caught. We will suppose, therefore, the 174 PRACTICAL HOME COOKERY. whitebait is ready. Now everything depends upon expedition. The whitebait must be first dried and then plunged as speedily as possible into boiling fat. First we will suppose ready on the fire a deep frying-pan full of boiling lard ; in order to ensure 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 table properly should burn the mouth with fire-heat. Do not try to 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, separate them. Properly cooked wliitebait 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 con- sisting of adding black pepper in the middle of cooking ; and the latter, black and cayenne

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