To Fry Whitebait:

1. Wash the whitebait in iced water, pick them over carefully, and dry them well in a cloth.

2. Take a sheet of paper and put on it a good teacup-ful of flour.

3. Take the whitebait and sprinkle them in the flour. They must not touch each other, and you must finger them as little as possible.

4. Take up the paper and shake the whitebait in the flour, so that they will be well covered with it.

5. Turn the whitebait from the paper of flour into a frying-basket, and sift all the loose flour back on to the paper.

6. Take a saucepan and put in it one pound and a half of lard or clarified dripping.

7. Put the saucepan on the fire, to heat the fat. "When the fat smokes, it will then be hot enough.

N. B. - The fat requires to be much hotter for frying whitebait than for anything else.

N. B. - If possible, the fat should be tested by a frimometer, and the heat should rise to 400° Fahr.

8. Then turn the whitebait, a few at a time, into the frying-basket, and put it into the fat for one minute. The whitebait should be quite crisp.

9. Put a piece of whity-brown paper on a plate, stand the plate near the fire, and turn the fried whitebait on to the paper, to drain off the grease. Serve them on a napkin on a hot dish. Lemon cut, and thin slices of brown bread and butter, should be served with them.

1 We have no whitebait, but this lesson applies to smelts equally well.