Jane Grigson's Fish Book - Jane Grigson [240]
Serves 4
500–750 g (1–1½ lb) smelts or other small fish
milk
seasoned flour
about 300 ml (10 fl oz) olive oil
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 large cloves garlic, halved
125 ml (4 fl oz) wine vinegar
bouquet garni
salt, pepper, cayenne
an extra bay leaf
Dip the fish in milk, drain and coat them in flour, shaking off the surplus. Fry not too fast in half the oil, then transfer them to a serving dish when they are nicely browned. Refresh the oil with what remains and cook the vegetables and garlic until lightly coloured – do not allow the oil to overheat or blacken. Add the vinegar and the bouquet with 4 tablespoons of water. Simmer until the vegetables are cooked, then distribute them over the fish with salt, pepper and cayenne, and the extra bay leaf. Bring the liquid left in the pan to the boil and strain it carefully over the fish so as not to dislodge the decorative bits and pieces.
Leave to cool, then cover and chill. This keeps well for two days.
† SPRAT Sprattus sprattus
Although sprats may look – hopefully – like smelts, it is wise to distinguish between the two for culinary reasons. The sprat, being a member of the herring family, is rich in oil and therefore tastes best when grilled. The smelt, being related to the salmon family, is less rich and usually fried.
Confusing them is not, however, a matter of anxiety. For one thing, the sprat has a tubbier, more homely appearance. For another, it is by many times the more common of the two. According to official lists, over a million hundredweight of them are landed annually. Smelts do not even rate an individual mention.
As with sardines, there seems to be little point in attempting to gut sprats. If you do feel the need, extract what you can via the gills with a hairpin. If you slit their bellies they become raggedy as they cook. Make the grill very hot and give them 2–3 minutes a side. Serve with lemon quarters, or a piquant French mustard, bread and butter. They can be turned into an Escabèche like smelts (p. 490) but are better baked in a hot oven, then skinned and left to marinade in oil and lemon with plenty of chopped green herbs, including chives or spring onion.
Smoked sprats are also a bargain, most delicious. As they can be indigestible, I think they are best served as part of a mixed hors d’oeuvre. Skin and fillet them. Range them neatly in an oblong dish, or on a round one like spokes of a wheel, and pour a little dry white wine over them, then sprinkle with a very little salt and plenty of black pepper. They can also be heated quickly under the grill (skin them or not as you please – if skinned, they need brushing with clarified butter*). Serve with bread, butter and lemon wedges.
Note that the tiny Skippers sardines are not sardines at all, but brisling, i.e. tiny sprats. They are not as easy to find as they once were, but persist. They, too, are fine for an hors d’oeuvre, or for crushing with butter for sandwiches.
† WEEVER Trachinus draco
First acquaintance with weevers can, quite literally, be agonizing. Walking barefoot on a sandy beach in Cornwall (or in many other places of the kind in Europe, although not I think in America), you may suddenly feel the most excruciating, stabbing pain. One friend insists that it vanished suddenly and completely after 15 minutes: other accounts are not so cheerful, and add inflammation and itching as well. These spiky fish like to bury themselves in sand, right up to the eyes (which are positioned at the top of the head), with just the spines of the first dorsal fin sticking up, almost invisibly, through the sand. They are really waiting for shrimps, although you may not appreciate this at the time, and are more of a nuisance to the shrimpers of Lancashire than they are to holiday-makers. Even the