This quintessential French dish evokes happy days at the seaside, where plates of small crispy fish are served up along with a chilled bottle of white or rosé. For me, petite friture inevitably makes me think of summer, which is perhaps why — after this long, dark, cold Parisian winter — I decided to try making it at home when I came across an inviting mound of tiny, silvery fish at a market the other day. Preparation proved surprisingly simple.
Petite friture / Fish fry, French style
As the name implies, the fish used in petite friture are very small, even tiny. The fish are rinsed, dried, coated with flour and deep fried in batches. You can keep them warm in the oven until ready to serve — and you eat them whole. They can be served with drinks at cocktail hour, or (more commonly) as a starter or a main course. They need only be accompanied by a little lemon, or if you prefer you can make a French-style sauce tartare, in which capers, tarragon and chopped pickles are added to mayonnaise.
The only problem may be finding the tiny fish. I have looked in vain for them many times at the farmers market in my neighborhood. The fishmonger says they are seasonal, but the season differs for different types of fish. Such a search may be even more difficult in other countries. But the effort of hunting is worth it.
The next question is which fish to use. The most common variety in France is the éperlan, which translates into English as smelt. Well — I know a thing or two about smelt. As a child growing up in Wisconsin, every year in the spring, when the close-to-shore ice over Lake Michigan had melted and the smelt run started, my brother and I were roused from bed in the middle of the night and driven to the shore, our father at the wheel, to join up with other families to go smelting. This involved wading into the freezing waters with large nets that would be dipped and raised full of wriggling small fish. Which my mother then had to figure out how to cook.
We did not do a lot of deep frying in my family — my mom pan-fried the smelt — and in fact I rarely attempted it until my daughter, then a young teen, decided one day that she absolutely had to have doughnuts, right then, right there. So she found a French recipe for beignets and headed into the kitchen. I was distracted, watching a movie on TV or some such, and couldn’t believe it when she reappeared with a plate of piping hot, sugary doughnuts. She went on to perfect the art of making frites — French fries — from scratch. (I may have to ask her to write a guest column on that.)
Since then, I, too, have waded into deep frying, with considerable success. By the way, friture, which translates literally as ‘frying’, is used in many expressions in France. For example, un bain de friture, literally ‘a frying bath’, means oil for deep frying. Petite friture, literally ‘small fry’, always refers to fish. Other fried foods are identified by their names — for example, friture de courgettes (deep-fried zucchini), calamars frits (deep-fried squid), etc. And of course pommes frites (French-fried potatoes).
This method of cooking is populaire over here — meaning not only that it is popular, but also that it is appreciated by people who live modestly, perhaps because it is typically used for dishes that are as inexpensive as they are tasty. Petite friture falls into that category — I bought a pound of éperlans for only 2.50 euros. And I couldn’t keep my daughter away from the stove as the fish came out of their frying bath, hot, crispy and delicious.
Happy cooking.
There’s an easy way and a hard way to make the delectable French strawberry dessert known as charlotte aux fraises, as I learned when setting out to make one for this post. A charlotte is an unbaked cake of ladyfingers with a creamy filling. Many modern recipes for strawberry charlotte use a thick dessert cream known as a bavaroise for the filling, and this involves the use of gelatin. As it turns out, that’s the hard way…
Because the easy way is so easy, the dessert is fun to make. If kids will be sharing it, you can skip the cassis and use strawberry syrup for flavoring the ladyfingers. Once assembled, the charlotte needs to be refrigerated for at least four hours, after which you can decorate it with sliced strawberries and mint. And no, the second time, it didn’t collapse…
Roast shoulder of lamb makes a fine centerpiece at Easter, Passover or any time of the year. In this recipe, the meat is surrounded by whole cloves of garlic, which soften while roasting into a sweet, succulent paste. The garlic cloves are roasted in their jackets, and the lamb may be boned for easy carving. Not counting the roasting time, preparation takes about 5 minutes. Add some roasted cherry tomatoes, and you’ll have a feast.
The lamb is imbued with the garlic flavor while it is roasting, and some sprigs of fresh thyme lend a taste of the wildness of Provence. Thyme may also be used on roasted cherry tomatoes, which you can pop in the oven at the same time as the lamb. They come out sweet and very tender.
Here’s a fresh take on avocat vinaigrette, a popular starter on bistro menus when I arrived in Paris 40 years ago. In the original, avocado halves were filled with a thick, mustardy sauce. This version is both lighter and prettier, the pink-orange of smoked salmon contrasting with the pale green of the avocado and darker green flecks of dill. Although it has the look of spring, it can be made in any season — and it’s incredibly quick to prepare.
Leek gratin is traditionally made with Reblochon, a pungent cheese from the French Alps, but it has been snowing in Paris. The snow brought the city to a standstill, and by the time it stopped the stores were empty. No Reblochon to be found! I wanted to make this recipe, so I improvised with raclette, a similar cheese. Tantalizing waves of aroma spread through the house as the leeks baked. This is winter comfort food at its best.
This is what I found. At the front of the store, the salad shelves were empty, a sign announcing that due to the weather, delivery trucks had been unable to get through. This was two days after the snow stopped. The dairy shelves, usually packed with a thousand types of yogurt, were empty too. In the cheese department, after hunting in vain for Reblochon, I found a lone packet of raclette and snatched it up. I already had the leeks.
The lobster known as le homard — the one with alarming claws — is hugely expensive in Paris, and so is its kinder, gentler cousin, la langouste (no pinchers). But this winter frozen langouste tails began appearing at a reasonable price, so I brought some home and began to experiment. I served them French style, butterflied and grilled with a vermouth-flavored 
Butternut soup is suddenly the rage in Paris. Walk down any street and you will see it listed on menu-of-the-day chalkboards outside bistros. This is all the more surprising given that butternut squash was virtually unknown in France until a few years ago, when it began appearing in farmers’ markets. Having captured the national imagination, it also captured mine, and today I’m offering two versions of this pleasant winter soup.
Perhaps in their (probably hopeless) effort to protect the language, the French have rebaptized what is originally a New World vegetable as courge doubeurre, which translates loosely as ‘sweet butter squash’. But I have never seen it marketed under that name, and you would most likely get a quizzical look if you asked at a grocery store for doubeurre. In fact, you might instead be given a packet of butter (du beurre). Better to use the French pronunciation of butternut — boo-tair-NOOT.
Here’s a cold-weather dish that is both sophisticated and supremely French. Duck parmentier — shredded duck confit topped by puréed potatoes — has turned up on Paris bistro menus recently and I was lucky enough to be served this version in early December. It came surrounded by a parmesan cream sauce and, to quote a friend, it was absolutely divine. After finishing every bite, I asked the bistro owner for the recipe.
I had a surprise recently when a friend from Alsace presented me with a recipe for butterbredel, small butter cookies in festive shapes that are traditionally served over the holidays. They’re not just pretty but incredibly easy to make. And fun! You can get the whole family involved. There are many variations on the recipe, but this one is the real thing. It’s from a bakery in Saverne, a small town near Strasbourg in northeastern France.
Sharing a shellfish platter in fond company is one of the great pleasures of life in France, particularly if you happen to be enjoying it by the sea. Add a bottle of crisp white and the sound of waves breaking against the shore, and you’re in for a romantic afternoon. This is of course not always possible. But with a little effort and ingenuity, you can create a shellfish platter at home. It makes a fine addition to a holiday meal.
Assiette d’huîtres
