Bychky v Tomati (бички в томаті, Azov gobies in tomato)

The small bones are meant to disappear. That is the whole trick of this dish, and the reason people along the Azov coast could turn a bucket of little fish into food for days: fry them first so the skins tighten and the fish keep their shape, then tuck them under a sweet-sour tomato sauce and let time do the chewing for you.

This is not a delicate fish supper. It is red sauce food, Mariupol food, market fish food, the kind you eat hot with bread on the first day and cold from the jar on the second, standing at the fridge with the door open like a guilty person. The tomato should taste sunny and a little sharp, the onions should go sweet, and the oil should shine orange around the edges. When Aunt Nadia wrote about small fish she never gave minutes, only "until it sounds right," which in this pot means the sauce stops spluttering angrily and begins to murmur thickly around the fish.

The why is simple: the fish must be browned before it is braised. Raw gobies collapse into the sauce and sulk. Fried first, they stay themselves while the tomato works slowly through the bones, softening them into something you barely notice under your teeth. Make a big pot. There is no tradition of a small one.