Fried Little Fishes

I don’t know for sure what these are—I get them in a bright blue plastic bag from the frozen fish section of the Chinatown Supermarket of Manhattan on East Broadway. But they remind of the fried hamsi (black sea anchovy, European anchovy, the translations go on and on) I ate in Turkey as an au pair, and the smelts my mom would occasionally buy at Kroger. 

And as it turns out, they are my party trick of the summer. I make them for my friends, for my family, for myself. I eat the leftovers cold for breakfast. My friends say, “Hm, maybe I’ll have one,” skeptically. They’re being polite. And then they eat one and want more. And they say things like “Oh, these actually ARE good.” And I gloat.

I serve these as an appetizer because they’re so good on their own with a squeeze of lemon. But they would be great as a meal served with a simple lemony crunchy salad, and bread to soak up the extra salty lemony corn flour crumbs on your plate. 

Fried Little Fishes 

Ingredients:

• Sunflower Seed Oil
• Little fish (1-2lbs)
• 1-2 cups of corn flour (more or less depending on how many fish)
• Salt
• Lemon

Debone and gut your little fishes, laying them flat. The fish I buy are cleaned, but they still have the bone. I run the knife from the tail down the fish, and then pull out the backbone. Scrape out any guts or eggs or whatever else you do not want to eat. 

Line a plate with paper towels. 

Pour the oil in a frying pan till it’s about half an inch deep; heat over medium high heat. Pour about a cup of corn flour into a shallow dish. One at a time, coat both sides of the little fish in corn flour. Once the oil is hot, place the fish in the pan, not crowding them. Fry for 2 minutes on the first side; flip. Continue to cook until crispy, about another minute and a half. 

Take the fish out and put them on the paper towel lined plate. Sprinkle with salt. Continue frying the rest of the fish in batches until they’re all cooked, sprinkling with salt when they come out of the pan. 

Serve hot, with lemon wedges, with fried potatoes or in sandwiches with shredded romaine.