ciabatta technique whatsa biga dealhi all thanks for the replies on the bread machine (the panasonic 253 is now on the wishlist!) When i said i love baking bread I shoul have mentioned...
Well, it was certainly easier than I thought preparing them. I didn't bother gutting or trimming. I just washed and dried them, discarded a few that looked a bit beaten up, and rolled them around a bit in some seasoned flour. I then cooked them for about 5 minutes in olive oil and ate them with some garlic mayo and lemon.
I was feeling a bit apprehensive about eating them whole as they were a fair bit larger than whitebait and still very recognisable as a fish, with staring eyes and a tail! But I'm always telling the wife to be more adventurous, so decided to eat them whole. Strangely I couldn't face eating the tail at all so went for the head end first. It was kind of crunchy and slightly spiky, but quiet nice. In the end I was choming down on the whole thing in one. My overall impression was that they were more crunchy than anything, and I would have liked a little more meat on them. I think I might try gutting them as per Peters method.
The verdict. Nice but not great. I probably would have been disappointed if I'd been in a restaurant, but for £1.05 they were pretty good and better than any £3 ready meal everyone else seemed to be buying. I'll probably try them again some time, but I wont be rushing out to get them every weekend, and they'll have to come from the fish market in Birmingham City Centre.
Thanks for the advice everyone!
