Part 5
=Baked Whitefish, Bordeaux Sauce.=--Clean and stuff the fish. Put it in a baking-pan, and add a liberal quantity of butter, previously rolled in flour, to the fish. Put in the pan half a pint of claret, and bake for an hour. Remove the fish, and strain the gravy; add to the latter a gill more of claret, a teaspoonful of brown flour, and a pinch of cayenne, and serve with the fish.
=Halibut, Egg Sauce.=--Select a three-pound piece of white halibut, cover it with a cloth, and place it in a steamer; set the steamer over a pot of fast boiling water, and steam two hours; place it on a hot dish, surrounded with a border of parsley; and serve with egg-sauce, which is made as follows:--
=Egg Sauce.=--Cream an ounce of butter; add to it one tablespoonful of dry flour, a saltspoonful of salt, and half a saltspoonful of white pepper (black pepper spoils its color). Stir it briskly, and add half a pint of hot water. Divide an ounce of butter into little balls, roll them in flour, and add them one at a time; stir constantly, and care should be exercised not to allow the sauce to brown or discolor. Chop three cold hard-boiled eggs, and add them to the sauce; let it heat thoroughly, and serve in a boat.
=Fried Butterfish.=--These flat, slate-colored little fish are excellent when quite fresh; and as they are easily cleaned, they are recommended to house-keepers. Fry them in tried-out salt-pork fat, which gives them a very nice flavor.
=Broiled Shad.=--The secret of having the fish juicy, and at the same time properly cooked, is to rub a little olive-oil over it before broiling, and broil it over a fire free from smoke or flame. Charcoal affords the best fire. The sulphurous fumes of hard coal injure the flavor of the fish. When done, have ready a little sweet butter melted and mixed with salt, white pepper (black pepper spoils the looks of the fish), half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley to two ounces of butter, and the juice of half a lemon. Place the fish on a hot dish, pour the hot sauce over it, and serve with hot plates.
=Baked Shad.=--Broiling is, next to planking, the best way of cooking this excellent fish; but a baked shad is not to be despised. Prepare it as follows:--
Make a stuffing of soaked bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt; place it lengthwise in a pan; roll walnuts of butter in flour, and put four to six of them on top of the fish; fill the space around the fish with inch slices of raw potato, and bake forty minutes. When done, serve potatoes and fish together.
=Shad Roe à la Poulette.=--Cover a pair of roes with water slightly salted; add a tablespoonful of vinegar and a slice of lemon; simmer twenty minutes, and drain; put into a saucepan an ounce of butter; when it begins to melt, whisk it, and add the juice of half a lemon.
Beat up the yolk of one egg with a gill of cream containing half a teaspoonful of flour rubbed free from lumps; whisk this gently into the warm butter; keep it quite warm until it thickens, but do not boil, or it will curdle. Pour it over the shad roes, strew over the top a trifle of chopped parsley, and serve.
=Broiled Royans.=--These delicate little fish are excellent as whet at dinner-parties, and may be served _au naturel_, or broiled, or served on toast. Procure them from the nearest grocer, open the can carefully to prevent breaking the fish, remove the skin, and broil them over a slow fire; arrange them on toast, squeeze a little lemon-juice over them, and serve.
=Broiled Sardines.=--When neatly prepared, this forms an excellent breakfast or luncheon dish.
Remove the sardines from the can without breaking them; scrape off the skin, place them between double wire broilers, and broil to a delicate brown; arrange neatly in a hot dish, squeeze a little lemon-juice over them, and serve. Orange-juice is very nice with the above dish.
=Broiled Smelts, Sauce Tartare.=--Thoroughly clean half a dozen smelts, split them in two, place them on a double wire broiler, and broil. Send to table with _sauce tartare_, which is made as follows: Chop together a few sprigs of parsley, six capers, one small pickle, a piece of onion as large as a bean. Add these to half a pint of mayonnaise, mix, and add a teaspoonful of French mustard, mix again, and serve.
=Smelts Fried, Sauce Tartare.=--Clean six small smelts, leave on the heads, dip them in beaten egg, roll them in fine cracker-dust, and fry in very hot fat. Serve with sauce tartare.
=Broiled Whitefish.=--The whitefish is one of the best of summer fish, but does not stand long transportation very well. See that the flesh is firm, and free from flabbiness. Cut the fish in two lengthwise, remove the backbone, divide each piece in two; brush over it a little sweet butter or olive-oil, and broil over a moderate fire for ten minutes. Place it in a hot dish, squeeze the juice of a lemon over it, add salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Garnish with tufts of parsley and thin slices of lemon, and serve.
=Sheeps-head with Drawn Butter.=--The Englishman who wrote the extraordinary statement that sheeps-head sometimes sold for “four or five pounds sterling in New York” may be pleased to learn that the price for this excellent fish is fifteen to eighteen cents per pound on an average, and that the best mode of preparing it for table is to boil or steam it, although broiled sheeps-head is very good.
Procure a medium-sized fish, clean it thoroughly, and rub a little salt over it; wrap it in a cloth, and put it in a steamer; place this over a pot of fast boiling water, and steam one hour; then lay it whole upon a hot side-dish, garnish with tufts of parsley and slices of lemon, and serve with drawn butter prepared as follows:--
=Drawn Butter.=--Take four ounces of butter, and roll it into small balls; dredge these with flour; put one-fourth of them in a saucepan, and as they begin to melt whisk them; add the remainder, one at a time, until thoroughly smooth; while stirring add a tablespoonful of lemon-juice and half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; pour into a hot sauce-boat, and serve.
=Broiled Sheeps-head.=--Split the fish in two lengthwise, and remove the head and bone, brush over the fish a liberal quantity of melted butter or oil, then broil over a fire free from flame or smoke. When done, squeeze the juice of a lemon over the fish, then add salt, pepper, and a pat of the choicest table butter.
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Transcriber's note:
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Other variations in hyphenation, spelling and punctuation remain unchanged.