West Coast whitebait

Shantanu Starick

It was at Amisfield Bistro one crisp, spring Central Otago day that I enjoyed a whitebait dish that has seen the demise of the whitebait fritter in Jo’s kitchen. We now cook it their way — lightly dredged in flour and pan-fried.

This recipe comes from their cookbook Amisfield: Food, Wine and Stories from Central Otago.

Ingredients

200 g	Whitebait (Main)
60 ml	Olive oil
5 cloves	Garlic, thinly sliced
3	Dried chillies, ripped in half and deseeded
1 bunch	Fresh parsley, chopped
100 g	Flour
40 ml	Canola oil
1	Lemon, cut into wedges, to serve
1	Bread, topped with butter, to serve

Directions

1. Divide the whitebait into 2 x 100g portions. Marinate 1 portion in the olive oil, garlic, chilli and parsley for at least 3 hours.
2. Heat a large frying pan on high heat. Coat the unmarinated whitebait in flour, place in a sieve and shake off all the excess flour. Add the canola oil to the hot pan and place the whitebait in the pan. Fry the whitebait until it becomes crispy, about 1 minute. Drain the crispy whitebait on a paper towel and season with salt.
3. Wipe out the pan and place it on low heat. Add the marinated whitebait and cook until the whitebait changes from clear to milky white. Serve immediately with lemon, and bread and butter.