Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [218]
As though the colour of the water were moving.
Bashô, the great haiku poet, saw in them the situation of powerless masses restrained by the power of the few:
The whitebait
Opens its black eyes
In the net of the Law.
Quite a thought next time you buy a package of frozen whitebait!
HOW TO BUY AND PREPARE WHITEBAIT
Of course, whitebait should be eaten fresh whatever species it may consist of and wherever you may find them. In some places you might be able to catch them yourself – ‘a simple haul seine (a io-foot [3-m] length of net with a fine mesh) is all that’s required.’
In Britain, we are unlikely to see whitebait fresh at all except, I would suppose, at Southend when they have the annual whitebait festival. What we do have is frozen whitebait of reasonable quality, which can be bought at the better groceries and freezer centres. Pubs serve them sometimes, quite properly with brown bread and butter and a wedge of lemon. They make a much better choice than ginger-crumbed plaice or extruded scampi in armoured batter.
There is only one way to cook whitebait, fresh or thawed. Do not attempt to gut the tiny creatures, just rinse and drain them and divide them into batches, according to the capacity of your deep-fryer.
Dip the first batch into milk, then shake them in a paper bag containing some seasoned flour. Put them into the fryer basket, shaking off excess flour, and plunge them into the hot oil until they are brown and crisp. Serve immediately.
For devilled whitebait, which is even more of a pleasure, add cayenne to the seasoned flour, and sprinkle the cooked fish with more cayenne.
WHITEFISH see TROUT
† WHITING
Merlangius merlangus
Some people do not care for whiting. They remember small grey fish coming to table curled round so that the tail was stuck through the eye sockets – a perverted fancy sometimes known as merlans en colère. They may also remember how wholesome this object was supposed to be (wholesome was once the English excuse for serving tasteless and watery food to children). They shudder at such recollections.
It is not worth arguing against prejudice of this kind. Just buy filleted whiting, and present them under their old name of marling or merling. Make sure, of course, that they taste delicious, which they will do if you cook them in the Dieppe style or serve them with Alan Davidson’s samphire sauce* or an orange sauce* which suits them particularly well. When filleted, whiting lack their blunted heads and have an attractive kipper shape because they are boned out from the back and not from the belly. These small whiting are the best to eat directly. Fillets of some length from larger whiting are the thing to buy for fish terrines and quenelles.
What are the advantages of whiting? For a start, it is one of the more rewarding members of the cod family. Not, you may think, a relationship to raise the cook’s blood pressure, but it does mean that the flesh is firm, with sweet flakes, and a kind of pearly quality, and that it is abundant – in other words, cheap. Much whiting is landed in Scotland (see wind-dried fish, p. 494), where it has a much stronger identity in people’s minds than it does in England. A pity since, in my experience, whiting comes to the fishmonger’s counter in the south in far better shape than most cod, and of such quality that it can be used in sole dishes without inviting sour comments, rather as mussels can be used in oyster recipes without disgrace.
The French who know a good fish when they see one, recognize this. They serve whiting with beautiful sauces like those which follow. They turn them into jeux d’esprit such as quenelles (p. 275) and dish them up with white wine*, mushroom* or shrimp* sauces. They may simply dip them in egg and breadcrumbs, and fry them in butter, or turn them into delicate stuffings for other fish and for terrines, or use them in soups and stews.
HOW TO CHOOSE AND PREPARE