Hugh's Three Hungry Boys

Hugh's Three Hungry Boys cooked these deep fried fish on their journey

Trevor: "Ever tried to descale, gut and prepare about 100 little fish? Probably not and there is a reason for that, it’s hugely time consuming and mind numbingly boring. But when there isn’t another option you just have to get on with it. I caught bucket loads of Smelt to use as bait in the hope of catching a Bass but in the end we ended up having to eat our bait for dinner. I hoped that they would be small enough to eat battered whole like Whitebait but closer inspection revealed lots of small bones and scales. My one recommendation if you are going to do this yourself is get someone else to prepare the fish!"

Serves 4

Prep 20 mins
Cook 1 hr 10 mins

• 3 large potatoes, peeled
• Oil, for shallow-frying
• 3 whole unpeeled cloves garlic
• Sprigs of rosemary
• 1 courgette, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 48 or so smelt, gutted and descaled
• 1 duck egg, beaten
• Flour, for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan 180°C/gas mark 6. Parboil the potatoes then drain and slice into wedges. In an oven tray heat some oil over the hob and add the whole garlic cloves and the rosemary.

2. When the oil is smoking hot carefully add the potato wedges then put into the oven on a high heat for 45 minutes or until they are crispy. You may need to flip them over every 15 minutes or so.

3. Thinly slice the courgette and lightly fry in a little oil with the chopped garlic.

4. While the potatoes and courgette are cooking dip the smelts into the beaten duck egg then coat with flour. Shallow fry the fish in hot oil until crispy then drain on kitchen paper and serve with the potato wedges and courgettes.