How to make the perfect fritto misto – recipe

The Guardian

5 days ago

Fritto misto (the term for 'mixed fry' sounds so much better in Italian, somehow) is, in the words of Katie Caldesi, 'an assortment of deep-fried vegetables, fish or meats … all bite-size, intended to be eaten with fingers and a wedge of lemon'. And she should know, because she loves the stuff so much that she served fritto misto at her wedding to chef Giancarlo. It's pure crisp, relaxed holiday pleasure – a simple crowdpleaser that everyone can dig into together, with, as Caldesi observes, a winning element of surprise: 'You don't know what is hidden beneath the batter until you've bitten into it.'
On that note, and because my memories of the dish involve rustling salty piles washed down with well-chilled carafes of vino della casa at seaside restaurants, I always think of the fishy version (properly fritto misto di mare), but I've given suggestions below for a vegetable alternative so everyone can enjoy the feast. After all, as the Tuscans say, fritta è buona anche una suola di scarpa (even the sole of a shoe tastes good fried).
Alan Davidson's magisterial 1972 work Mediterranean Seafood explains that, while fritto misto is 'one of the most common fish dishes in restaurants on the Italian coast … the composition varies according to what is available, and there are scores of possible combinations. In Venice,' he adds, 'a typical mixture would be from the following range: inkfish or squid; soft-shell crabs; prawns or shrimp; eel; sardines. In Naples, the list would be shorter.' Quoting one signora Jeanne Caròla, he writes: 'Our fritto di pesce, the ultra-classical one, is not too varied: red mullet and squid only.'
With such a simple recipe, you should be guided by what's freshest, or what looks best, at the fishmonger – that's the Italian way. However, my job here is to test recipes as written, so obediently I went out to find large raw prawns, which most recipes call for, along with baby squid. Cesare Casella and Stephanie Lyness's The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Italian Cuisine demands fish fillets; Tessa Kiros' Twelve specifies red mullet, so, happening upon a fine Cornish example at my local fishmonger, I use that in both. Sasha Marx's recipe for Serious Eats, meanwhile, substitutes the usual sardines and anchovies for the North American smelt, which I swap back to anchovies. Caldesi, too, goes for anchovies, though she sandwiches tinned ones in fresh sage leaves, thereby adding a pop of salty perfume that proves irresistible; in fact, one of my testers asks why I can't just make a whole plate of those instead.
The River Cafe Classic Italian Cookbook simply calls for 'mixed small fish' (though its authors note that the day they went to the market, they were lucky enough to find 'langoustines, soles, mullets, eels, prawns and moscardini [baby octopus]'), which, in my case, means the anchovies and the whitebait I've already bought for Russell Norman's version. These are soaked in milk for 15 minutes before cooking – though Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray don't say why, it's said to reduce the 'fishy' flavour. Fresh fish ought not to need this treatment, so I've thrown caution to the wind and skipped this step.
Whatever you go for (do play about with my suggested selection below), it's very easy to overcook seafood – to my mind, the prawns stand up best to the fierce heat of the hot oil, even more so if, like Marx, you leave the shells on. But if crunching through them isn't your idea of fun, you might prefer to remove them first. If you fancy using fish (and the more textures and flavours here, the merrier, as far as I'm concerned), I find that small whole ones work better than fillets or cubes of mullet, which are difficult to cook perfectly and have a tendency to stick or fall apart. You could also use soft-shell crabs, scallops, mussels, even oysters; anything that appeals, really.
Vegetables are very much an optional extra, but I like the freshness that they bring to the dish – or as much as anything that's been deep-fried can be said to be 'fresh'. Caldesi suggests cauliflower and artichokes, Kiros artichokes, asparagus, courgettes and tomatoes, and Casella and Lynness courgettes and aubergine, plus sprigs of sage, parsley and basil. The artichokes, to my and my testers' surprise, prove the favourites; they don't seem to give off much water (courgettes and aubergines, on the other hand, are prone to turning soggy) and their shape provides lots of interesting ridges for the batter to cling to. But they're so seasonal that I've substituted the more easily sourced fennel bulb, whose aniseed flavour I think pairs better with fish. If you'd prefer to keep things vegetarian, use a mixture of vegetables that take your fancy, but avoid anything with a high water content such as mushrooms and ripe tomatoes.
Where the recipes really differ is in the batter they use, which varies from chef Pasquale Torrente's mere dusting of semolina flour to the enriched, beer-spiked batter in the Caldesis' The Italian Cookery Course. Being a sucker for carbs, I admit to a fatal weakness for the more robust and shatteringly crisp batter shell – somewhere between tempura and a fish supper – produced by Caldesi, Kiros and Angela Hartnett's recipes.
As with so much here, however, it's a matter of personal preference; if you like your seafood plain and simple, just dip it in seasoned semolina, or in the mixture of semolina and cornflour used by Marx, which does indeed help to keep it crisper for longer, or in the River Cafe's flour before frying. (Semolina gives a grittier consistency; Casella and Lynness mix cornmeal and flour for a similar, but even craggier result.)
Flour, according to Harold McGee's seminal On Food & Cooking, is the ingredient that has the 'largest influence on batter quality … the gluten proteins in ordinary wheat flour are valuable for the clinginess they provide, but they form elastic gluten and absorb moisture and fat, and so are responsible for chewiness and oiliness in the fried crust. For these reasons, moderate-protein flours make better batters than bread flour.' Though I don't find any recipes that call for bread flour, several mention the finely milled 00 flour traditionally used in pasta making, possibly because it's one that's often found in Italian kitchens. The example I buy, however, proves higher in protein than my standard plain variety, so I've stuck with the latter, cut with cornflour, which, as McGee explains, 'improves crispness because its relatively large particles are less absorbent, and its proteins dilute wheat gluten and reduce the chewiness of the crust'.
Much as I appreciate an excuse to crack open a bottle while cooking, I favour the plainer, water-based batters to those made with beer and wine, or indeed eggs and milk (with a special mention to the whisked egg whites in Norman's book Polpo, which give his dredge an ethereal, tempura-like effect). Cold sparkling water, in particular, produces a deliciously light, crisp result. If you're a real perfectionist, you might take Hartnett's advice and stir the batter over a bowl of iced water, because the colder the batter, the slower the gluten formation. I find simply using fridge-cold water and being careful not to overmix (chopsticks are, as she says, ideal for the purpose) work well enough for me.
I don't think Marx's baking powder is necessary, given the sparkling water, nor Caldesi's pinch of sugar, which I suspect is, like the milk in many recipes, more there to encourage the batter to brown than to add an overt sweetness. Fritto misto tends to be rather paler than, say, an onion ring; more a ghostly tentacle than a bronzed rubber band.
This is one recipe that you must, I'm afraid, get out the oil for: the clue is in the name. A high heat is best – Casella and Lynness's 165C feels too cool, and the seafood takes ages to brown, leaving some of it overcooked. Better to go in hot and fast, as Hartnett and several others recommend – though, unless you have a huge fryer, I'd also urge you to cook the different elements separately, to prevent the squid overcooking while the prawns are still floppy and wan. It's also best, if doing both vegetables and seafood, to cook the former first, or everything will end up tasting of fish.
Serve hot, with plenty of salt and wedges of lemon to squeeze over the top.
The ingredients list is just a guide, so feel free to swap in seafood and vegetables as desired.
Prep 25 min
Cook 10 min (depending on the size of your pan)
Serves 4
2 fennel bulbs
300g squid, baby or large, cleaned if necessary8 large raw shell-on prawns, or 12 medium ones200g small whole fish (ie, whitebait)16 sage leaves
8 anchovy fillets in oil, drained
125g plain flour, plus extra for dusting25g cornflour
Salt
Neutral oil, for frying250ml very cold sparkling water
Lemon wedges, to serve
Trim the fennel and cut it into chunky wedges.
Give the squid a wash, then remove the tentacles, and cut off and discard the head at the top of them.
If the squid are large, you might need to peel off the outer membrane (look online for advice) before cutting the body into chunky rings; if using baby squid, leave the bodies whole.
Wash the prawns, cut a slit down the back of each one and pull out and discard the dark 'vein' running along the prawn's back. Wash the small fish. Pat everything dry.
Pair up the sage leaves with ones of fairly equal size, then sandwich an anchovy fillet between each pair (you may need to trim one end off some of the anchovies for neatness).
Put the flours in a large bowl and season with salt. Put a little more plain flour on a plate.
Pour enough neutral oil into a large, heavy saucepan to fill it by no more than a third and heat to 190C (alternatively, set a deep-fat fryer to heat to 190C). Turn on the oven to low and line a baking tray with kitchen paper.
When the oil is almost up to temperature, quickly stir the cold sparkling water into the bowl of seasoned flours, mixing as little as possible; don't worry if there are lumps.
As soon as the oil is ready, toss the fennel in the plate of flour to coat, shake off the excess, then dip it in the batter. Shake the excess back into the bowl and carefully drop the fennel into the hot oil (don't overcrowd the pan or the oil will cool down too far and its contents will go soggy, so if necessary fry everything in batches), stirring once so it doesn't stick or clump. Fry for a couple of minutes, until pale golden brown, then scoop out with a slotted spoon on to the kitchen paper, blot off any excess oil and put in the low oven to keep warm.
Repeat with the prawns, followed by the squid, then the little fish, and finally the sage and anchovy sandwiches, making sure the oil comes back up to temperature each time, and bearing in mind that the prawns will probably take a little longer (three or so minutes if they're large specimens) than the squid. Go by eye: the batter should be crisp and pale gold, rather than bronzed.
Once everything is fried and ready, tip on to a serving plate, season with salt and serve with lemon wedges to squeeze over the top (and with a bowl for the prawn heads and shells).
Fritto misto: the capo of all fried foods, or does someone else fry seafood better? Do you prefer a light semolina dredge or a crunchy batter jacket? Or will you make the case for the vegetable, meat or even sweet versions?