Sunday, February 10, 2013

Smelt Night


Saturday 2 February
America's chief groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicted a short winter, though it's cold and snowy where we are.  We'd usually have ground hog in his honor, but there were fresh smelts at Luken's, and we got a pound and a half (which we previously established as too much - we'd better start bringing our i-pad to the market for blog consultation in future).


When dinnertime came, we shook batches of the little fish in a bag of seasoned flour, then dipped in beaten egg (though next time we need to use a longer platter for that), and shook in a bag of peppered and salted fine cornmeal.  Then fried batches in very hot oil in the skillet, until all were done.
We served the smelts with a side salad of garden arugula (picked just before last week's hard freeze, and undoubtedly the last of the winter) and some surprisingly flavorful Roma tomatoes from Madison's, sliced thin, with slivers of red onion, and dressed with rosemary oil and white balsamic.
And never worry - the half pound of left over smelts will serve another purpose.

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