Part 26

Wash and wipe a large shad. Make a stuffing of fine breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter, a little minced onion, pepper and salt to taste. Fill the fish with this and sew it up. Lay it in a baking-pan and pour over it a cupful of salted boiling water in which two tablespoonfuls of butter have been melted. Sprinkle the fish with flour and bake in a steady oven. Baste with the drippings every ten minutes. At the end of three-quarters of an hour try the fish with a fork to see if it is done. It should be very tender. Transfer carefully to a hot platter, cut and remove the strings. Keep the fish hot while you make the sauce.

Set on the top of the range the pan in which the fish has been baked. Thicken the fish drippings with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour wet up with cold water. Stir until smooth, then add a cupful of boiling water, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of good table sauce and a teaspoonful of good kitchen bouquet. Unless the sauce is perfectly smooth, strain through a wire sieve. Pour into a heated gravy-boat.

Boiled fresh codfish

Lay the fish in salt and water for an hour before cooking. Choose a “chunky” piece, as nearly square as you can get it. Sew up in white mosquito netting fitted to the shape of the fish. Put on in enough boiling water to cover it, adding four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and cook steadily ten minutes to the pound. Unwrap the fish and pour over it half of the sauce described below, putting the rest into a gravy-boat.

Egg sauce for boiled codfish

Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and of flour until they bubble, pouring upon them a half pint of milk and stirring until thick and smooth. To this add one hard-boiled egg, chopped fine, one raw egg, beaten light, putting it in slowly, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the fish in the dish or serve in a sauce-tureen.

Baked fresh codfish with cheese sauce

Cut a neat square or oblong of codfish, lay in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry and rub all over with melted butter and lemon juice. In the bottom of your baking-pan under the grating and just _not_ touching the fish, have a cupful of veal stock, or weak gravy, strained. Pepper and salt the fish, cover and bake ten minutes to the pound. Take up then and sift dry, fine crumbs thickly all over it. Put dots of butter on these. Set in the oven, uncovered, to brown while you strain the gravy from the pan, thicken with butter rolled in browned flour, add the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese and a little onion juice. Boil one minute, pour a few spoonfuls carefully upon the crumb-crust of the fish, the rest into a boat.

This is an elegant company dish of fish, and easy of preparation.

Baked fillets of halibut

Cut slices of halibut, weighing a pound each, and an inch thick. Cut each into three strips, two fingers wide, lay in lemon juice and salad oil for an hour; then cook precisely as directed above. When you sift the crumbs over the fillets, cover all sides; then proceed as with the baked cod, taking care to arrange the fillets for browning so that they will not touch one another.

Baked halibut

Lay a piece of halibut weighing about four pounds in cold water (salted) for half an hour, then wipe dry and lay in a covered roaster. Pour over it a cupful of boiling water, in which have been melted two tablespoonfuls of butter. Bake until tender and keep hot on a platter while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour and butter, and season with a teaspoonful, each, of lemon and onion juice, a little celery salt and a wineglassful of claret. Strain, and send to the table in a gravy-boat.

Baked halibut steak (No. 1)

Lay the steak in salted water for fifteen minutes; wipe and put into a baking-pan. Rub the steak with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour over and around it a cupful of milk. Bake, basting every ten minutes until the milk is absorbed. Serve with drawn butter.

Send around fried potatoes with it.

Baked halibut steak (No. 2)

Wash, wipe and lay in marinade of olive oil and lemon juice for one hour. Sprinkle, then, liberally, with minced onion, parsley and lemon juice, turning over and over that the steak may be covered. Now, lay upon the grating of your bakepan. Make a white sauce by stirring one cupful of hot milk into one tablespoonful of butter cooked into a roux with one of flour. Season it with salt and pepper, and pour it over the fish. Cover the surface with fine crumbs moistened in melted butter and bake until the fish is done, about twelve minutes to the pound.

Halibut steak baked with tomatoes

(A Creole recipe.)

Make a rich sauce of tomatoes, fresh or canned, seasoning with butter rolled in flour, sugar, pepper, onion juice and salt, adding, if you have it, a sweet green pepper, seeded and minced. Cook fifteen minutes, strain, rubbing through a colander, and cool. Lay the halibut in oil and lemon juice for an hour, place upon the grating of your covered roaster, pour the sauce over it; cover and bake twelve minutes to the pound if the oven be good. Sift Parmesan cheese over the fish, and cook five minutes longer. Serve upon a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

Baked fillets of flounder

Take the backbone out of the fish and cut each half into two neat, long slices. Roll each piece up and pin with a wooden skewer. A new toothpick will do. Lay in salad oil and lemon juice for an hour, setting in the ice to make the fish firm while soaking in the marinade.

Roll in fine dry crumbs, peppered and salted; in beaten egg, and again in crumbs. Cover the grating of your bakepan with thin shavings of salt pork, lay the fillets upon them, sprinkle thickly with finely-minced onion and olives, and bake, covered, twelve minutes for each pound. Lift carefully to a hot dish; withdraw the skewers. Garnish with sliced lemon and send to table.

Fried fillets of flounder

Cut, trim and marinade as for baking. When you take them from the ice, roll as for baking, salt and pepper, roll in crumbs, then in egg, and again in crumbs. Leave on ice for half an hour longer, and fry in deep hot cottolene, salad oil, or other fat. Drain, withdraw the skewers and serve with sauce tartare.

Baked fresh mackerel

Marinade for half an hour in olive oil and lemon juice. Lay thin slices of pork upon the grating of a baking-pan, lay the mackerel on the pork, skim down, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, and bake in a hot oven for twenty-five minutes.

Serve with tomato sauce.

Boiled salmon-trout

Select a small fish for this purpose, as a large one will not fit into the ordinary-sized fish-kettle. Have in your kettle enough salted boiling water to cover the fish, and add two tablespoonfuls of vinegar to the water. Sew the fish up in a piece of firm cheese-cloth, and lay it carefully in the kettle. After it begins to boil, allow twelve minutes to the pound. When done take out of the water carefully, remove the cloth and transfer the fish to a hot platter. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and pour over it a well-seasoned white sauce. Garnish the dish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley.

Baked salmon

Wipe your fish with a damp cloth, but do not lay it in water. Rub with a little salad oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay in a baking-pan and dash over it a cupful of boiling water in which two tablespoonfuls of butter have been melted. Bake, covered, basting every fifteen minutes. When done transfer to a hot platter and set in the open oven while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with corn-starch wet with cold water, and season it with lemon juice and a dash of onion juice. A little tomato catsup is an improvement. Boil up once and pour into a gravy-boat. Send to the table with the salmon, which may be garnished with sprigs of parsley.

Baked pickerel

Clean and wash the fish. Choose a large fine one for this purpose. Lay it on the grating of your bakepan, dredge with salt and pepper, butter well and dredge with flour. Put into a hot oven, and when the flour begins to brown, baste with butter, water and lemon juice. Cook twelve minutes to the pound, remove, and serve with oyster sauce.

Boned baked pickerel

Have your fishmonger take out the backbone when he has split the fish lengthwise, also have him extract every other bone he can get out without tearing the flesh too much. Marinade for an hour in a bath of olive oil and lemon juice. Cover the grating of your bakepan with thin shavings of salt pork, lay the fish upon this, skin-side downward, wash with melted butter, bake, covered, half an hour, baste and cook ten minutes more. Serve with Hollandaise sauce.

Baked salmon-trout with cream gravy

Clean and wash, wipe dry, and go all over it, inside and out, with melted butter and lemon juice. Lay upon the grating of your bakepan, pour in a little boiling water, not quite touching the fish, and bake twelve minutes to the pound, basting twice with butter and twice with the water in the pan below.

Keep hot in heated dish, covered, set over boiling water while you strain the gravy left in the pan, add to it a cupful of hot milk (half cream, if you can get it) scalded with a pinch of soda, thickened with a white roux of butter cooked with flour, and seasoned with paprika, salt and a little minced parsley. Pour over the fish, let it stand three minutes over hot water and serve.

Fried brook trout

Clean with care, roll in peppered and salted flour; set on ice for an hour, and fry immediately in deep fat to a golden-brown. Have a mat of folded and heated tissue paper fringed at the ends, and lay the drained fish upon it. Eat at once.

Broiled soft-shell crabs

Lift the projecting “wings” of the upper shell, and cut or pull off the “feathers” you will find under them. Next trim off the tail, or flap, or “apron,” a round piece of softer shell on the under side of the upper.

Wash quickly and cook without delay lest they die on your hands.

Wash with butter, sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper, lay within a reversible wire broiler, and cook over clear coals ten minutes, turning twice to broil both sides.

Serve upon thin slices of buttered toast.

Fried soft-shell crabs

Prepare as directed in preceding recipe, sprinkle with cayenne and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs, again in egg, and once more in crumbs and fry in deep, hot fat.

Garnish with water-cress, and pass sliced lemon with them.

Lobster broiled in the shell

Kill the lobster by cutting the tail off with one stroke of the knife, just where it joins the body. With another clean cut divide him lengthwise into two equal parts, shell and all. Take out the coral, the one long intestine and the stomach. Crack the claws with a hammer. Put within a buttered broiler, split side downward, and broil over a fierce fire. As soon as the juice begins to run freely withdraw long enough to wash liberally with melted butter, and return to the fire, turning often to keep in the juices. Cook about ten minutes on the split or flesh side, and eight upon the other.

Have ready a sauce made by rubbing two tablespoonfuls of butter to a cream with lemon juice and finely-minced parsley, adding a little cayenne, and wash the lobster with this while hissing hot. Serve half a lobster to each guest, with oyster forks for extracting the meat.

Pass more sauce for those who wish it.

Lobster baked in shell

Prepare as for broiling, but lay, shell downward, in a bakepan, cover and set in a quick oven, opening in ten minutes to wash with butter. They should be done in twenty minutes, when wash freely with the lemon and butter sauce.

Lobster scalloped in shells

Two cupfuls of lobster meat, cut into small dice. One cupful of white stock, and the same of unskimmed milk. Two tablespoonfuls of butter made into a white roux with one tablespoonful of flour. Salt and paprika to taste. Minced parsley and juice of half a lemon. Beaten yolks of two eggs. Halves of two lobster shells, cleaned. Pinch of soda in milk.

Stir the hot stock and the scalded milk into the roux, season, boil once; remove from the fire, add the eggs and lobster dice and fill the shells. Cover with fine crumbs, rounded, dot with butter, sprinkle with cayenne and bake to a delicate brown.

Lobster á la Newburg

Pick all the meat from the shells of two good-sized freshly-boiled lobsters and cut into one-inch pieces, which place in a saucepan over a hot range, together with two tablespoonfuls of butter, and season with a pinch of salt and one of cayenne. Cook five minutes, pour in a glass of sherry; simmer five minutes, add the beaten yolks of three eggs and a cupful of cream, stirring all the time. When it thickens, pour out and serve.

Do not omit to put a pinch of soda in the cream.

Stewed terrapin

(A Maryland recipe.)

Drop the “diamond-backs” into boiling water and cook until the heads and feet “skin off.” This should be in less than an hour. Let them get perfectly cold. Strip off the shells and extract the heart and entrails carefully, lest an incautious touch rupture the gall-bag and ruin everything. Cut off the head, tail and feet. Cut the meat up small with a sharp knife, put into a saucepan, cover with hot water and simmer fifteen minutes. Rub the yolks of half a dozen hard-boiled eggs to a powder and work in three tablespoonfuls of butter. Heat a cupful of cream in another vessel (with a pinch of soda) and work by degrees into the egg and butter, season with salt and cayenne and mix gradually with the hot terrapin. Cook one minute, add a glass of sherry and pour out.

Fricasseed snapping turtle

Have your fish merchant clean your turtle after he has killed him by throwing him into boiling water. Cut the turtle into neat dice, sprinkle with salt, pepper, onion juice, a dash of kitchen bouquet and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup. Turn into a saucepan, add just enough cold water to cover the meat, fit a top on the vessel and simmer for half an hour. Now add a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed to a paste with a great spoonful of butter; when this is blended with the liquid in the pan, add a glass of sherry and stir in very gradually the beaten yolk of an egg. Bring to the boil and remove from the fire. Turn into a deep heated dish.

A fricassee of crabs

Cut the meat into inch-length pieces, and as evenly as possible. Put into a saucepan a mixture of butter, lemon juice and minced parsley, cayenne and salt. Heat slowly, and when it bubbles stir in the crab meat. Simmer gently for fifteen minutes. Have ready in another vessel a tablespoonful of cream for each crab, heated with a pinch of soda. Thicken with a teaspoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour, and turn upon the yolks of three eggs, or one for every pair of crabs; stir for one minute over the fire, pour into a hot covered dish, stir in the hot crab meat; set in boiling water for three minutes, and serve.

Oyster pâtés

Into a pound of flour chop three-quarters of a pound of cold, firm butter, until you have a coarse yellow powder. Have all your utensils cold. Wet the flour and butter with three gills of iced water and, with a spoon, work into a mass. Turn upon a floured pastry board, roll and fold, then roll again three times, lightly and quickly. Fold and put in the ice-box for several hours. Roll into a sheet half an inch thick, and with a cutter cut into rounds like biscuits. Pile these three deep, and with a small cutter pass half-way through each pile. Put into the oven, which should be very hot, and bake to a light, delicate brown. The pastry should be very light. When done remove from the oven, and lift off the little round in the top of each pâté. This will serve as a cover. With a small spoon scoop out the soft paste from the center, thus leaving a cavity to be filled with the oyster mixture.

Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and flour, and pour upon them a cupful and a half of rich milk—half cream, if you have it. Stir to a smooth sauce, add the drained oysters, and cook just long enough for the edges to begin to ruffle. Now beat in gradually the beaten yolk of an egg; cook two minutes, season with celery salt and white pepper and fill the shells with the mixture. Fit on the little covers, and set in the oven until all are very hot.

Oyster fritters

Chop thirty oysters. Make a batter of two beaten eggs, a half pint of milk and a pint of prepared flour. If the batter is too stiff, add more milk. Stir the oysters into the batter, and drop this by the spoonful into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. As the fritters brown on one side, turn them over. Drain in a hot colander as soon as well colored.

Oyster pie

Line a deep pie-plate with puff paste, fill the interior with bread crusts (to be removed later) and fit on a top crust, buttered about the edge on the under side that it may be easily taken off. Stew a quart of oysters for five minutes; stir in very slowly a cupful of thick white sauce and the beaten yolks of two eggs. When the paste is done take off the top, remove the bread crusts, fill the center with the creamed oysters, replace the top crust and set the pie in the oven for five minutes before sending to the table.

Pickled oysters

Bring a quart of oysters, with their liquor, to the boil; immediately remove the oysters and drop into a large glass jar. To the liquor add six whole cloves, six whole pepper-corns, six blades of mace broken into bits, a small red pepper, a cupful of vinegar and a little celery salt. Boil up once and pour immediately over the oysters. Keep in a dark place until wanted.

Jumbolaya

(An East Indian recipe.)

Wash half a cupful of raw rice well and drop into a pint of strained tomato juice, made boiling hot. Cook fast for twenty minutes, or until the rice is soft, but not broken; add two tablespoonfuls of butter worked to a paste with two teaspoonfuls of curry; simmer ten minutes, salt to taste and put in twenty-five fine oysters. Cook until they ruffle, and pour out.

This is a good entrée for a family dinner. Pass thin slices of buttered graham bread and ice-cold bananas with it.

Clam pie

Fry a quarter pound of fat salt pork crisp; strain out the scraps and fry a sliced onion in the same fat. Strain again, add a pint of clam juice with a lump of butter the size of an egg, and make hot while you prepare the “pie.”

In the bottom of a buttered bakedish put a layer of clams, on them one of milk crackers, previously soaked in hot milk, buttered, peppered and salted, more clams and so on until the dish is nearly full. Cover the last stratum of clams with parboiled potatoes cut very thin, pepper and salt, and sprinkle these with a tablespoonful of grated onion and the same of parsley. Now pour the hot liquor over all, cover with a good pie crust and bake half an hour in a good oven, covered, then brown.

Clam cocktails

Put a dozen small clams in an ice-cold bowl and pour over them a half tablespoonful, each, of Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, lemon juice and tomato catsup, a teaspoonful of horseradish and a saltspoonful, each, of salt and Tabasco sauce. Mix and bury in ice for an hour before serving in two small glasses.

Oysters with Parmesan cheese

(Contributed)

Drain the oysters free from all liquor. Lay in a well-buttered baking-dish, sprinkle over with finely-minced parsley, season with salt and pepper; over all pour one-half glass of champagne and cover thickly with grated Parmesan cheese. Put in the oven until nicely browned on top. Take out; drain all the fat from it, and serve while very hot in the dish in which it was baked.

Oyster cutlets

(Contributed)

Drain off the liquor and wash the oysters well. Put them into a saucepan over the fire and heat until the edges curl, being careful to stir all the time. Strain the liquor. Chop the oysters fine. Rub together one tablespoonful of butter and one rounded tablespoonful of flour for each pint of chopped oysters. Add the oyster liquor and cook until quite thick. Then add the chopped oysters and the yolk of one egg, beaten well. After taking from the fire add one teaspoonful of salt, one tablespoonful of minced parsley and the juice of one-half a lemon. Let all stand until perfectly cold. Form into cutlets, dip into egg, then into breadcrumbs and fry in hot fat.

Oyster canapés

(Contributed)

Toast ten slices of buttered bread and place in the oven to keep warm. Wash and drain one quart of oysters. Throw them into a hot pan and stir until the edges are curled. Add one teaspoonful of butter, one-half teaspoonful of salt and a dash of cayenne. Dish on the slices of toast, garnish with a thin slice of lemon for each one, and serve at once.

Scalloped fish

The remains of any cold cooked fish may be utilized and made palatable in this way. Get rid of skin, bones and fat. Pick fine, season well, and mix with good drawn butter. Fill buttered scallop shells or “nappies” with the mixture, strew with fine crumbs, stick bits of butter on the top, add a “suspicion” of cayenne, and bake to a delicate brown.

Oyster scallop

Cut each oyster in half, “draw” the butter in the oyster liquor and proceed as in the preceding recipe.

SAUCES FOR FISH AND MEAT

Drawn butter (“white sauce”)

Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan. When it bubbles put in (all at once) two tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir from the sides towards the center of the pan until the ingredients are well mixed. Have ready-heated a cupful of milk, add to this the “roux” gradually, and beat to a smooth cream. Season with white pepper and salt, and, if you like, a little onion juice.

Egg sauce

Make as above, beating the yolks of two raw eggs into the thickened milk, and if for fish, adding the yolk and white of a hard-boiled egg chopped fine, also a little minced parsley.

Brown sauce

Make as you would white, but substitute boiling water for the milk, and browned flour for white. Add a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, the juice of a lemon, pepper and salt.

Sauce tartare (No. 1)

Make a pint of mayonnaise dressing. Into this beat a teaspoonful of mustard, a tablespoonful of minced parsley, a teaspoonful, each, of chopped pickle and minced capers, a dozen drops of onion juice. Beat for a minute, and serve in a sauceboat.

Sauce tartare (No. 2)

Make a cupful of drawn butter (using boiling water, not milk). Beat in a teaspoonful of French mustard, half as much onion juice, a little cayenne and salt, a heaping teaspoonful of finely-chopped pickle and the beaten yolk of a raw egg at the last.

Hollandaise sauce

Into one cupful of drawn butter beat the yolk of an egg, then a good teaspoonful of best salad oil, dropping as you would for mayonnaise. Add, then, the juice of half a lemon, a pinch of pepper, one of salt, and the same of sugar, and serve at once.

Béchamel sauce for meat

A roux of butter and flour should be thinned with a cupful of veal or chicken stock, seasoned with onion juice, a small carrot, sliced, pepper and salt. Strain the stock before mixing with the roux. Have ready a cupful of rich milk or cream, heated with a pinch of soda; draw the hot stock and roux from the fire, stir in the cream, and it is ready for use.

Béchamel sauce for fish

Put the bones, head and a few ounces of fish meat in cold water over the fire, with an onion and a small carrot, sliced, also a bay leaf; boil down to one cupful of liquid, and use instead of veal or chicken stock in last recipe. In all other respects make in the same way.

Oyster sauce

To a white roux of butter and flour add a cupful of boiling liquid made by cooking a dozen oysters in hot water for two minutes. Drain the oysters (which should be very small) and keep warm while you stir the thinned roux to a smooth cream, and season it with a dash of cayenne, a teaspoonful of lemon juice and a little salt. Boil one minute, put in the oysters and take at once from the fire.

Lobster sauce