Whitebait

Marides in Greece are not the young herring or sprat sold as whitebait elsewhere. They are picarel, a small silver Mediterranean fish caught in shoals and sold whole and ungutted by the kilo. The distinction matters mainly when shopping abroad, where whitebait is the closest available stand-in and behaves the same way in a pan for the same purpose.

They are floured and deep fried in very hot oil until crisp, then eaten entire, heads, bones, tails and all, with a squeeze of lemon over the top. This is ouzo food rather than dinner: a plate of marides tiganites belongs on an ouzeri table alongside several other small dishes rather than standing on its own as a main course.

Two things reliably go wrong. Oil that is not hot enough leaves the fish greasy and limp instead of crisp, and crowding the pan does exactly the same thing by dropping the temperature, so they are fried in small batches. Shaking the excess flour off each fish before it goes in keeps the oil clean enough to last the whole batch.