Barabulka is the Russian name for the red mullet of the Black Sea, a small rose pink fish with two whiskers under its chin that it uses to hunt along the seabed. Around Sochi it is the taste of the summer coast: cleaned, salted, dusted in flour and fried in sunflower oil until the skin is crisp and the fins brittle enough to eat, then served with nothing more than lemon, dill and a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers.

It is a dish with no hiding places and no need of any. The flesh is sweet and delicate, the skin salty and crunchy, and the whole thing is cooked in about six minutes. Eating it with your fingers, lifting the fillets off the bone, is entirely correct and slightly theatrical, which suits a race weekend at the seaside.

Tomato and cucumber salad

Ingredients

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 2 small cucumbers
• 1/2 small red onion
• 2 tablespoons sunflower oil, unrefined if you can find it
• 2 tablespoons fresh dill
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt

The fried fish

Ingredients

• 2 pounds (900 g) small whole red mullet
• 1 1/2 teaspoons fine salt
• 1/2 cup (65 g) all purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons fine cornmeal or cornstarch
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 cup (120 ml) sunflower or vegetable oil
• 1 lemon
• 2 tablespoons fresh dill

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