Fried whitebait-smelt fish

Deep fried and crispy "Marithes" fish... An excellent (mainly Summer) meze for your ouzo or wine. Whitebait-smelt is a very popular and standard dish in the menus of ouzo bars and fish taverns all around Greece and not only in the islands. The smaller the better and it's then when they don't need to be gutted and take the heads off. They are eaten whole, literally whole!! If they are less than 5cm long they are considered as "whitebait" but longer than this they do need the classic cleaning and gutting

Ingredients (for 4 people -as a meze):
500gr. of whitebait-smelt
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 tsp of salt
black pepper
4 cups of corn oil
lemon wedges for serving

Method:
Wash and drain the fish well.

In a large plate put the flour, salt and pepper and stir. Dredge the fishes through the flour,a few at a time, and then gently shake them to discard any excess. Leave aside on a dish and continue with the rest of the fishes.

In a deep and spacious heavy-bottomed frying pan (or deep fryer) warm the oil on high heat until it is very hot but not fuming.

Place half the fishes in the pan and fry for about 3 minutes or until they are crispy and golden on both sides. Remove with a slotted spatula and drain on kitchen paper. Continue frying until all fishes are used.

Serve the fish while it is still hot on a serving platter along with the lemon wedges. Any fried fish of such kind goes perfectly well with Greek salad or green salad, green-leaves salad (horta), fried potatoes, tzatziki, battered deep fried courgettes and aubergines and other similar meze dishes.