Poutine (Niçoise whitebait) ✦

Poutine

What it is

European law bans the landing of fry, and the Riviera holds one of the rare exemptions: a forty-five-day window in late winter, granted to a handful of prud’homies between Cagnes and Menton. Nice cooks it the day it lands — an omelette, a soup, or fried into a lace pancake — and the near-identical nonat, the fry of a goby, is a different fish under a different rule.

In the kitchen

It keeps for hours, not days, and it will not survive a tap: lift it out of its water with a slotted spoon and drain it on cloth. A minute in olive oil with garlic is the longest it should ever cook.

Goes with

Olive oil Garlic Lemon Egg Parsley White wine vinegar Black pepper T55 flour

Same species

Sardine

In season alongside

Clam Cod Tiger pufferfish (torafugu) Glass eel Haddock Hake

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