I don't know Italian so while I'd like to title this post Bambino Bluefish Fritti, Fried Baby Bluefish is a safer route. Our original goal was to make the tiny, crispy whitebait you can snack on the at the Italian sea side (or more close to home, restaurants like Felidia). Flash fried whole, they're like little fish french fries, totally addictive.
Steve and I set off early one morning with the seining net. It's normally a breeze to sweep up schools of silvery whitebait in the inlets coursing in and out of the nearby bays.
We set our net across a shallow channel, and starting about ten or 15 feet away, Steve walked in the water back to the net while I held it in place. Usually the tiny fish cooperate and swim right into the net. We can scoop up handfuls in a single netting, more than enough for a good fry.
But on this morning there weren't many to be seen. Maybe it was too late in the summer.
Instead we captured some more formidable swimmers. Varying from two to four inches long, these were real fish. Infants no longer. If they had feet I guess they might be considered toddlers. We brought them home but we didn't have high hopes.
A consultation with Michael the Irish fishmonger at Amagansett Seafood determined these were baby bluefish. Also known in these parts as snappers, though not to be confused with Red Snapper. He concurred that frying these whole was a bad idea. Luckily he provided an easy alternative. With a quick trim we'd pare them down into less intimidating pieces and proceed with our intended preparation.
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Back at the house, now over two hours out of the water, I was slightly horrified to find them very much alive, still flipping around. (Click to witness their last moments.) A little squiggle and squirm, then a squooshy crunch of the blade angled from the back of the head to to the top of the belly and the battle was won. Scooped out the small bit of innards with my pinkie. Beheaded and disemboweled, they became much more appealing.
So, first a dredge in flour. Then a fry in hot oil for a couple of minutes until brown. Whitebait are done in 30 seconds to a minute, tops, but these larger fish needed two to three minutes to cook through. Next thinly sliced lemons got the flour treatment and also were fried 'til browned at the edges. Lastly some some sprigs of fresh sage (au natural, no flour) went into the oil and in a minute the delicate leaves were crisp. Salted it all up, arranged in a tangle and snacked away while still hot.
They were awesome.
How do they stack up against whitebait? The whitebait taste sequence is salty crunch first, then just a hint of fish. The fried snappers give you that crisp outside but deliver more than a suggestion of fish, it's juicy bite of fish, miniscule bones and fins included. The lemons and sage provide a nice counter point. After all, they're small but they are bluefish. Adult blues have dark and somewhat oily flesh; not to everyone's taste. As veal is to beef, or a baby carrot is to the tough giants usually relegated to the juicer, so snappers are to bluefish.
It's a bummer to come home empty handed from a fishing or foraging trip. So discovering this new treat was all the more satisfying.