Part 4

Save the cold remnants of the fish and what sauce is left until next morning. Pick out as you would cod, mix with an equal quantity of mashed potato, moisten with the sauce, or with milk and butter if you have no sauce, put it into a skillet, and stir until it is very hot. Do not burn. Season with pepper and salt.

BAKED HALIBUT. ✠

Take a piece of halibut weighing five or six pounds, and lay in salt and water for two hours. Wipe dry and score the outer skin. Set in the baking-pan in a tolerably hot oven, and bake an hour, basting often with butter and water heated together in a saucepan or tin cup. When a fork will penetrate it easily it is done. It should be of a fine brown. Take the gravy in the dripping-pan—add a little boiling water should there not be enough—stir in a tablespoonful of walnut catsup, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the juice of a lemon, and thicken with browned flour, previously wet with cold water. Boil up once and put into sauce-boat.

There is no finer preparation of halibut than this, which is, however, comparatively little known. Those who have eaten it usually prefer it to boiled and broiled. You can use what is left for the same purpose as the fragments of boiled halibut.

HALIBUT STEAK. ✠

Wash and wipe the steaks dry. Beat up two or three eggs, and roll out some Boston or other brittle crackers upon the kneading-board until they are fine as dust. Dip each steak into the beaten egg, then into the bread crumbs (when you have salted the fish), and fry in hot fat, lard, or nice dripping.

Or, you can broil the steak upon a buttered gridiron, over a clear fire, first seasoning with salt and pepper. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter well, and cover closely.

DEVILLED HALIBUT.

Mince a pound of cold boiled or baked halibut, or the fragments of halibut steak, and make for it the following dressing: The yolks of three hard-boiled eggs rubbed smooth with the back of a silver spoon, or in a Wedgewood mortar, and when there remain no lumps in it, work into a soft paste with a tablespoonful salad oil. Next beat in two teaspoonfuls white sugar, a teaspoonful made mustard, a pinch of cayenne, teaspoonful salt, one of Worcestershire sauce, a little anchovy paste if you have it, and finally, a little at a time to prevent lumping, a _small_ teacupful of vinegar in which celery-seed have been steeped. It is easy to keep a bottle of this on hand for salads and sauces. Stir all thoroughly into the minced fish, garnish with a chain of the whites of the eggs cut into rings, with a small round slice of pickled beet laid within each link, and you have a _piquant_ and pretty salad for the supper-table.

BOILED SALMON. (_Fresh._) ✠

Wrap the fish, when you have washed and wiped it, in a clean linen cloth—not too thick—baste it up securely, and put into the fish-kettle. Cover with cold water in which has been melted a handful of salt. Boil slowly, allowing about a quarter of an hour to each pound. When the time is up, rip open a corner of the cloth and test the salmon with a fork. If it penetrate easily, it is done. If not, hastily pin up the cloth and cook a little longer. Skim off the scum as it rises to the top. Have ready in another saucepan a pint of cream—or half milk and half cream will do—which has been heated in a vessel set in boiling water; stir into this a large spoonful of butter, rolled in flour, a little salt and chopped parsley, and a half-gill of the water in which the fish is boiled. Let it boil up once, stirring all the while. When the fish is done, take it instantly from the kettle, lay it an instant upon a folded cloth to absorb the drippings; transfer with great care, for fear of breaking, to a hot dish, and pour the boiled cream over it, reserving enough to fill a small sauce-boat. Garnish with curled parsley and circular slices of hard-boiled yolks—leaving out the whites of the eggs.

After serving boiled salmon with cream-sauce, you will never be quite content with any other. If you cannot get cream, boil a pint of milk and thicken with arrow-root. It is not so nice, but many will not detect the difference—_real_ cream being a rare commodity in town.

You may pickle what is left, if it is in one piece. Or devil it, as I have directed you to treat cold halibut. _Or_ mince, mixed with mashed potato, milk, and butter, and stir into a sort of stew. Or, once again, mix with mashed potato, milk, butter, and a raw egg well-beaten; make into cakes or balls, and fry in hot lard or dripping. At any rate, let none of it be lost, it being at once one of our most expensive and most delicious fish.

BAKED SALMON. ✠

Wash and wipe dry, and rub with pepper and salt. Some add a soupçon of cayenne and powdered mace. Lay the fish upon a grating set over your baking-pan, and roast or bake, basting it freely with butter, and, toward the last, with its own drippings only. Should it brown too fast, cover the top with a sheet of white paper until the whole is cooked. When it is done, transfer to a hot dish and cover closely, and add to the gravy a little hot water thickened with arrow-root, rice, or wheat flour,—wet, of course, first with cold water,—a great spoonful of strained tomato sauce, and the juice of a lemon. Boil up and serve in a sauce boat, or you can serve with cream sauce, made as for boiled salmon. Garnish handsomely with alternate sprigs of parsley and the bleached tops of celery, with ruby bits of firm currant jelly here and there. This is a fine dish for a dinner-party. A glass of Sherry improves the first-named sauce.

SALMON STEAKS. ✠

Dry well with a cloth, dredge with flour, and lay them upon a well-buttered gridiron, over clear hot coals. Turn with a broad-bladed knife slipped beneath, and a flat wire egg-beater above, lest the steak should break. When done to a light brown, lay in a hot dish, butter each steak, seasoning with salt and pepper, cover closely, and serve.

PICKLED SALMON. (_Fresh._) ✠

Having cleaned your fish, cut into pieces of a convenient size to go into the fish-kettle, and boil in salted water as for the table. Drain it very dry, wipe it with a clean cloth, and set it aside in a cool place until next morning.

Make pickle enough to cover it in the following proportions: 2 quarts vinegar, a dozen blades of mace, dozen white peppers, dozen cloves, two teaspoonfuls made mustard, three tablespoonfuls white sugar, and a pint of the water in which the fish was boiled. Let them boil up once hard, that you may skim the pickle. Should the spices come away with the scum in large quantities, pick them out and return to the kettle. Set the liquor away in an earthenware jar, closely covered, to keep in the flavor. Next morning hang it over a brisk fire in a bell-metal kettle (covered), and heat to boiling. Meanwhile, prepare the salmon by cutting into pieces an inch and a half long and half an inch wide. Cut cleanly and regularly with a sharp knife. When they are all ready, and the liquor is on the boil, drop them carefully into the kettle. Let the pickle boil up once to make sure the salmon is heated through. Have ready some air-tight glass jars, such as you use for canning fruit and tomatoes. Take the salmon from the kettle, while it is still on the stove or range, with a wire-egg-beater, taking care you do not break the pieces. Drop them rapidly into the jar, packing closely as you go on; fill with the boiling pickle until it overflows, screw on the top, and set away in a dark, cool place. Proceed in the same way with each can until all are full. Salmon thus put up will keep good for _years_, as I can testify from experience, and will well repay the trouble of preparation. You can vary the seasoning to your taste, adding a shallot or two minced very fine, some celery and small pods of cayenne pepper, which always _look_ well in vinegar.

Be sure that the contents of the kettle are boiling when transferred to the cans, that they are not allowed time to cool in the transit, that the elastic on the can is properly adjusted, and the top screwed down tightly, and success is certain. I would call the attention of those who are fond of the potted spiced salmon, sold at a high price in grocery stores, to this receipt for making the same luxury at home. It costs less by one-half, is as good, and is always on hand.

PICKLED SALMON. (_Salt._)

Wash the salmon in two or three waters, rubbing it lightly with a coarse cloth to remove the salt-crystals. Then soak over night in tepid water. Exchange this in the morning for ice-cold, and let the fish lie in the latter for three hours. Take it out, wipe dry, and cut in strips as directed in the foregoing receipt. Drop these, when all are ready, in a saucepan of boiling water, placed alongside of a kettle of pickle prepared as for fresh salmon. Beside these have your air-tight jars, covers laid in readiness, and when the salmon has boiled five minutes—fairly boiled, not simmered—fish out the pieces with your wire spoon, pack rapidly into your can; fill up with the boiling pickle from the other kettle, and seal instantly. In two days the pickled salmon will be fit for use, and is scarcely distinguishable from that made of fresh fish. It has the advantage of being always procurable, and of comparative cheapness, and in the country is a valuable stand-by in case of unexpected supper company.

SMOKED SALMON. (_Broiled._)

Take a piece of raw smoked salmon the size of your hand, or larger in proportion to the number who are to sit down to supper. Wash it in two waters, rubbing off the salt. Lay in a skillet with enough warm—not hot—water to cover it; let it simmer fifteen minutes, and boil five. Remove it, wipe dry, and lay on a buttered gridiron to broil. When it is nicely browned on both sides, transfer to a hot dish; butter liberally, and pepper to taste. Garnish with hillocks of grated horse-radish interspersed with sprays of fresh or pickled fennel-seed, or with parsley.

Raw smoked salmon is in common use upon the supper-table, cut into smooth strips as long as the middle finger, and rather wider; arranged neatly upon a garnished dish, and eaten with pepper-sauce or some other pungent condiment.

BOILED SHAD. (_Fresh._) ✠

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish. A roe shad is best for this purpose. Cleanse the roes thoroughly, and having sprinkled both shad and eggs with salt, wrap in separate cloths and put into a fish-kettle, side by side. Cover with salted water, and boil from half an hour to three-quarters, in proportion to the size. Experience is the best rule as to the time. When you have once cooked fish to a turn, note the weight and time, and you will be at no loss thereafter. A good rule is to make a pencilled memorandum in the margin of the receipt-book opposite certain receipts.

Serve the shad upon a hot dish, with a boat of drawn butter mingled with chopped eggs and parsley, or egg-sauce. Lay the roes about the body of the fish. Garnish with capers and slices of hard boiled eggs.

BOILED SHAD. (_Salt._)

Soak the fish six or seven hours in warm water, changing it several times; wipe off all the salt and immerse in ice-cold water. When it has lain in this an hour, put into a fish-kettle with enough fresh water to cover it, and boil from fifteen to twenty minutes, in proportion to the size. Serve in a hot dish, with a large lump of butter spread over the fish.

BROILED SHAD. (_Fresh._) ✠

Wash, wipe, and split the fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay it upon a buttered gridiron, inside downward. When the lower side is browned, turn the fish. One of medium size will be done in about twenty minutes. Serve upon a hot dish, and lay a good piece of butter upon the fish.

BROILED SHAD. (_Salt._)

Soak over night in lukewarm water. Take out in the morning and transfer to ice-cold for half an hour. Wipe very dry, and broil as you do fresh shad.

FRIED SHAD.

This is a popular dish upon Southern tables, and is good anywhere. Clean, wash, and wipe a fine roe-shad; split and cut each side into four pieces, leaving out the head, and removing fins and tail. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying pan of boiling hot lard or drippings; put in the fish and fry brown, turning at the end of five minutes to cook the other side. Fry the roe in the same way; lay the fish in the middle of the dish, and the roe outside of it; garnish with water-cresses and sprigs of pickled cauliflower, and eat with catsup.

BAKED SHAD. ✠

Clean, wash, and wipe the fish, which should be a large one. Make a stuffing of grated bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and sweet herbs. Stuff the shad and sew it up. Lay it in the baking-pan, with a cupful of water to keep it from burning, and bake an hour, basting with butter and water, until it is tender throughout and well browned. Take it up, put in a hot dish and cover tightly, while you boil up the gravy with a great spoonful of catsup, a tablespoonful of browned flour which has been wet with cold water, the juice of a lemon, and, if you want to have it very fine, a glass of Sherry or Madeira. Garnish with sliced lemon and water-cresses. You may pour the gravy around the fish, or serve in a sauce-boat. Of course you take out the thread with which it has been sewed up before serving the fish.

BOILED SEA-BASS.

Clean and put the fish into the fish-kettle, with salted water enough to cover it when you have enveloped it in the fish-cloth. A medium-sized fish will be done in a little over half an hour. But do not boil too fast. When done, drain and serve in a hot dish. Lay sliced boiled eggs upon and about it, and serve with egg-sauce, mingled with capers and nasturtium seed.

FRIED SEA-BASS.

Use smaller fish for this purpose than for boiling. Clean, wipe dry, inside and out, dredge with flour and season with salt. Fry in hot butter or dripping. A mixture, half butter, half lard, is good for frying fish. The bass should be done to a delicate brown—not to a crisp. The fashion affected by some cooks of drying fried fish to a crust is simply abominable.

Fried bass are a most acceptable breakfast dish.

STURGEON STEAK.

Skin the steaks carefully and lay in salted water (cold) for an hour, to remove the oily taste, so offensive to most palates. Then wipe each steak dry, salt, and broil over hot coals on a buttered gridiron. Serve in a hot dish when you have buttered and peppered them, and send up garnished with parsley and accompanied by a small glass dish containing sliced lemon.

_Or,_

You can pour over them a sauce prepared in this way:—

Put a tablespoonful of butter into a frying-pan, and stir until it is brown—_not_ burned. Add a half-teacupful of boiling water in which has been stirred a tablespoonful of browned flour previously wet with cold water. Add salt, a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce or anchovy, the juice of a lemon, and let it boil up well. Pour over the steaks when you have arranged them in the dish.

BAKED STURGEON.

A piece of sturgeon weighing five or six pounds is enough for a handsome dish. Skin it and let it stand in salt and water for half an hour. Parboil it to remove the oil. Make a dressing of bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat salt pork, sweet herbs, and butter. Gash the upper part of the fish quite deeply, and rub this force-meat well in; put in a baking-pan with a little water to keep it from burning, and bake for an hour.

Serve with a sauce of drawn butter, in which has been stirred a spoonful of caper sauce and another of catsup.

This is a Virginia receipt, and an admirable one.

MAYONNAISE. (_Fish._)

Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock, or cod), cut—not chop—into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as follows: the yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with salad oil; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls white sugar, and, lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with half the dressing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the top, and lay blanched lettuce-leaves around the edges, to be eaten with it.

BAKED SALMON-TROUT. ✠

Those who have eaten this prince of game fish in the Adirondacks, within an hour after he has left the lake, will agree with me that he never has such justice done him at any other time as when baked with cream.

Handle the beauty with gentle respect while cleaning, washing, and wiping him, and lay him at full length, still respectfully, in a baking-pan, with just enough water to keep him from scorching. If large, score the back-bone with a sharp knife, taking care not to mar the comeliness of his red-spotted sides. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. By the time he is done—and he should be so well-looked after that his royal robe hardly shows a seam or rent, and the red spots are still distinctly visible—have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream—diluted with a _few_ spoonfuls of hot water, lest it should clot in heating—in which have been stirred cautiously two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a little chopped parsley. Heat this in a vessel set within another of boiling water, add the gravy from the dripping-pan, boil up once to thicken, and when the trout is laid—always respectfully—in a hot dish, pour the sauce around him as he lies in state. He will take kindly to the creamy bath, and your guests will take kindly to him. Garnish with a wreath of crimson nasturtium blooms and dainty sprigs of parsley, arranged by your own hands on the edge of the dish, and let no sharply-spiced sauces come near him. They would but mar his native richness—the flavor he brought with him from the lake and wild-wood. Salt him lightly, should he need it, eat and be happy.

If the above savor of bathos rather than “common sense,” my excuse is, I have lately eaten baked salmon-trout with cream-gravy.

BOILED SALMON-TROUT. ✠

Clean, wash, and dry the trout; envelop in a thin cloth fitted neatly to the shape of the fish, lay within a fish-kettle, cover with salted water (cold), and boil gently half an hour or longer, according to the size. When done, unwrap and lay in a hot dish. Pour around it cream-sauce made as for baked salmon-trout—only, of course, with the omission of the fish-gravy—and serve.

FRIED TROUT.

Brook trout are generally cooked in this way, and form a rarely delightful breakfast or supper dish.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish, roll lightly in flour, and fry in butter or clarified dripping, or butter and lard. Let the fat be hot, fry quickly to a delicate brown, and take up the instant they are done. Lay for an instant upon a hot folded napkin, to absorb whatever grease may cling to their speckled sides; then range side by side in a heated dish, garnish, and send to the table. Use no seasoning except salt, and that only when the fish are fried in lard or unsalted dripping.

FRIED PICKEREL. ✠

The pickerel ranks next to trout among game-fish, and should be fried in the same manner. Especially—and I urge this with groaning of spirit, in remembrance of the many times in which I have had my sense of fitness, not to say my appetite, outraged by seeing the gallant fish brought to table dried to a crisp throughout, all his juices wasted and sweetness utterly departed—especially, do not fry him slowly and too long; and when he is done, take him out of the grease!

CREAM PICKEREL. ✠

Reserve your largest pickerel—those over three pounds in weight—for baking, and proceed with them as with baked salmon-trout—cream-gravy and all. If you cannot afford cream, substitute rich milk, and thicken with rice or wheat flour. The fish are better cooked in this way than any other.

FRIED PERCH, AND OTHER PAN-FISH.

Clean, wash, and dry the fish. Lay them in a large flat dish, salt, and dredge with flour. Have ready a frying-pan of hot dripping, lard, or butter; put in as many fish as the pan will hold without crowding, and fry to a light brown. Send up hot in a chafing-dish.

The many varieties of pan-fish—porgies, flounders, river bass, weak-fish, white-fish, etc., may be cooked in like manner. In serving, lay the head of each fish to _the tail of the one_ next him.

STEWED CAT-FISH. ✠

Skin, clean, and cut off the horribly homely heads. Sprinkle with salt, to remove any muddy taste they may have contracted from the flats or holes in which they have fed, and let them lie in a cool place for an hour or so. Then put them into a saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently for from half to three-quarters of an hour, according to their size. Add a chopped shallot or button-onion, a bunch of chopped parsley, a little pepper, a large tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of flour mixed to a paste with cold water; boil up once, take out the fish carefully, and lay in a deep dish. Boil up the gravy once more, and pour over the fish. Send to table in a covered dish.

FRIED CAT-FISH. ✠

Skin, clean, and remove the heads. Sprinkle with salt, and lay aside for an hour or more. Have ready two or three eggs beaten to a froth, and, in a flat dish, a quantity of powdered cracker. Dip the fish first in the egg, then in the cracker, and fry quickly in hot lard or dripping. Take up as quick as done.

CAT-FISH CHOWDER.

Skin, clean, and cut off the heads. Cut the fish into pieces two inches long, and put into a pot with some fat pork cut into shreds—a pound to a dozen medium-sized fish, two chopped onions, or half a dozen shallots, a bunch of sweet herbs, and pepper. The pork will salt it sufficiently. Stew slowly for three-quarters of an hour. Then stir in a cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of flour; take up a cupful of the hot liquor, and stir, a little at a time, into two well-beaten eggs. Return this to the pot, throw in half a dozen Boston or butter crackers, split in half; let all boil up once, and turn into a tureen. Pass sliced lemon or cucumber pickles, also sliced, with it. Take out the backbones of the fish before serving.

STEWED EELS. ✠

Inquire, before buying, where they were caught, and give so decided a preference to country eels as to refuse those fattened upon the offal of city wharves. Nor are the largest eels the best for eating. One weighing a pound is better for your purpose than a bulky fellow that weighs three.

Skin and clean, carefully extracting all the fat from the inside. Cut into lengths of an inch and a half; put into a saucepan, with enough cold water to cover them; throw in a little salt and chopped parsley, and stew slowly, closely covered, for at least an hour. Add, at the last, a great spoonful of butter, and a little flour wet with cold water, also pepper. Serve in a deep dish. The appearance and odor of this stew are so pleasing as often to overcome the prejudices of those who “Wouldn’t touch an eel for the world! They look like snakes!” And those who have tasted them rarely enter a second demurrer.

FRIED EELS.

Prepare as for stewing; roll in flour, and fry, in hot lard or dripping, to a light brown.

CHOWDER (_No. 1._) ✠