Name: Vishandel De Poort
Address: Gedempte Herensingel 10, Haarlem, 2032 NS, NL
Telephone: 023 535 9820
Rating: 4.5

Netherlands

Haarlem

Vishandel De Poort

Hamsi tava is the Black Sea way with anchovies: small fresh hamsi, gutted but usually left whole with the head off, rolled in coarse cornmeal and fried in a shallow pan until the flour sets into a crust. In Trabzon, Rize and along the whole Turkish Black Sea coast it is the dish of the anchovy season, roughly November to February, when the fish are fattest and sold by the kilo from crates at the harbour, and a family will cook it several times a week. The cornmeal is what separates it from fried fish elsewhere in Turkey, where wheat flour is the norm; the region grows maize and uses it for bread, for mıhlama and for this. The anchovies are often fanned in a single layer in a round pan, tails to the centre, so that the whole thing can be flipped as one disc and served looking like a wheel.

The fish are cleaned by hand, head pinched off and gut pulled out with it, then rinsed and drained well, because wet fish turns the coating to paste. They are salted, rolled in cornmeal, and pressed so the meal sticks, and the pan gets a shallow layer of oil, hot enough that a fish sizzles on contact but not smoking. Arranged in a ring, they fry for three to four minutes until the underside is golden and the edges crisp, then the whole wheel is turned with a plate or a lid and the second side gets another two to three minutes. Some cooks add a little butter at the end for colour. The fish are done when the flesh pulls away from the spine with a fork; the spine itself is eaten in small anchovies and left in larger ones.

Judge it on the crust and the fish together. The cornmeal should be golden, dry and gritty-crisp, not oily or pale, and it should stay on the fish rather than fall off in a sheet; inside, the anchovy should be moist, white and mild with a clean sea taste. It is served the moment it leaves the pan with lemon, raw onion and often rocket or a parsley salad, and a cold hamsi tava is a failed one. Mark down fish that tastes fishy or soft, which means it was not fresh or sat in the fridge too long, a wheat-flour coating offered as hamsi tava, a batter, deep-fried fish without the pan crust, and a portion that is mostly coating. The season matters: out-of-season frozen hamsi is a lesser dish and an honest kitchen says so.

Hamsi tava

Same taste like i had in my hometown.

I have been living in Haarlem more than 6 years and until this year i had no idea i could order Hamsi from a restaurant.

You don’t need to cook it home they will do it for you.

Well cleaned and cooked Hamsi. They put spicy peppers and olives at top which is not common in Turkey. I guess owner is from Morocco and i like this version already. Just tell them what time you will pick and they will prepare.

It is no perfect as you cook at home but still you will get a nice taste and nice smelling house 😂

Picture is 1.5 kilo. I am putting the price for a kilo.

Vishandel De Poort

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