Boil five or six pounds of haddock. Take out all bones, and shred the fish very fine. Let a quart of milk, a quarter of an onion and a piece of parsley come to a boil; then stir in a scant cupful of flour, which has been mixed with a cupful of cold milk, and the yolks of two eggs. Season with half a teaspoonful of white pepper, the same quantity of thyme, half a cupful of butter, and well with salt. Butter a pan, and put in first a layer of sauce, then one of fish. Finish with sauce, and over it sprinkle cracker crumbs and a light grating of cheese. Bake for an hour in a moderate oven.
Prepare the vol-au-vent as directed. Put one quart of oysters on to boil in their own liquor. As soon as a scum, rises, skim it off, and drain the oysters. Return half a pint of the oyster liquor to the sauce-pan. Mix two heaping table-spoonfuls of butter with a scant one of flour, and when light and creamy, gradually turn on it the boiling oyster liquor. Season well with salt, pepper and, if you like, a little nutmeg or mace, (it must be only a "shadow"). Boil up once, and add three table-spoonfuls of cream and the oysters. Stir over the fire for half a minute. Fill the case, cover, and serve immediately.
A general role for boiling fish, which will hold good for all kinds, and thus save a great deal of time and space, is this: Any fresh fish weighing between four and six pounds should be first washed in cold water and then put into boiling water enough to cover it, and containing one table-spoonful of salt. Simmer gently thirty minutes; then take up. A fish kettle is a great convenience, and it can be used also for boiling hams. When you do not have a fish kettle, keep a piece of strong white cotton cloth in which pin the fish before putting into the boiling water. This will hold it in shape. Hard boiling will break the fish, and, of course, there will be great waste, besides the dish's not looking so handsome and appetizing. There should be a gentle bubbling of the water, and nothing more, all the time the fish is in it, A fish weighing more than six pounds should cook five minutes longer for every additional two pounds. Boiled fish can be served with a great variety of sauces. After you have learned to make them (which is a simple matter), if you cannot get a variety of fish you will not miss it particularly, the sauce and mode of serving doing much to change the whole character of the dish. Many people put a table-spoonful of vinegar in the water in which the fish is boiled. The fish flakes a little more readily for it. Small fish, like trout, require from four to eight minutes to cook. They are, however, much better baked, broiled or fried.
Split fish, clean, and remove head and tail. Put in buttered pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot over with butter (allowing one tablespoon to a medium-sized fish), pour over two-thirds of a cup of milk. Bake twenty-five minutes in a hot oven.
Use cold fish and potatoes, if there are any in the larder; if not, boil a piece of blue smoked cod in some water for five minutes. Flake it up free from skin and bone and put it into a basin; mash up the potatoes and mix them in with the pepper and salt. Bind into a paste with an egg; rub some dripping on a baking sheet, turn the mixture on to it and shape into the letter S, brush over with egg or milk, and bake till brown. Slip it off on to a hot dish, and garnish with parsley.
Fillet the fish, put the bones in a saucepan, and just cover them with water. When they boil, skim well, and add the tomatoes sliced up, the peppercorns and vegetables; boil quickly without the lid for half an hour, then strain, rubbing the pulp of the tomatoes through with the liquor. Make a smooth sauce with half a pint of this liquor, the butter, and the flour; if the colour is not good add a few drops of cochineal. Fold the fillets of fish neatly, and bake in the oven with a little lemon juice, and covered with a buttered paper. Arrange them on a dish and pour the sauce over. Serve hot.
Soak herring a few hours, when washed and cleaned, bone and chop. To one herring take one onion, one sour apple, a slice of white bread which has been soaked in vinegar, chop all these; add one teaspoon oil, a little cinnamon and pepper. Put on platter in shape of a herring with head at top and tail at bottom of dish, and sprinkle the chopped white of a hard-boiled egg over fish and then the chopped yolk.
Score the fish on the back with a knife, and season them with salt and cayenne pepper. Cut some small onions in round slices, and chop fine a bunch of parsley. Put some butter into a frying-pan over the fire, and when it is boiling hot lay in the fish. When they are about half done put the onions and parsley into the pan. Keep turning the fish that the onions and parsley may adhere to both sides. When quite done, put them into the dish in which they are to go to table, and garnish the edge of the dish with hard boiled eggs cut in round slices. Make in the pan in which they have been fried, a gravy, by adding some butter rolled in flour, and a small quantity of vinegar. Pour it into the dish with the fish.
The attractive "savory" of English dinner tables finds its counterpart apparently in egg and fish dishes served cold at the beginning of a meal, and therefore what we should call hors d'oeuvres.
