Choose small fish of different kinds and fillet them. As only half the fillets are wanted for the souchet, the rest may be dressed in another way. Wash the bones in cold water and remove the black substance from them, put them into two quarts of cold water with a teaspoonful of salt, and when it boils remove the scum and add 1 dozen peppercorns, one carrot, one small turnip, one onion, a small piece of celery, and a fagot of herbs. Put the vegetables in whole. Boil this together for one hour, then strain off through a hair sieve and return to the saucepan; wash the vegetables that have been boiled in it, slice them up and put them into the liquor. Cut the fillets of fish into small pieces and put them in; simmer for half an hour, then put in a little lemon juice, pour into a tureen, and sprinkle a little chopped parsley on the top. Send brown bread and butter to table with it and a lemon.
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.
Having boiled the crabs, extract all the meat from the shell, cut it fine, and season it to your taste with nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Add a bit of butter, some grated bread crumbs, and sufficient vinegar to moisten it. Fill the back-shells of the crab with the mixture; set it before the fire, and brown it by holding a red-hot shovel or a salamander a little above it. Cover a large dish, with small slices of dry toast with the crust cut off. Lay on each slice a shell filled with the crab. The shell of one crab will contain the meat of two.
Wash and dry the fish, rubbing inside and outside with salt; stuff with a bread stuffing and sew. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and place in a hot oven without water. As soon as it begins to brown add hot water and butter and baste every ten minutes. Bake until done, allowing an hour or more for a large fish, twenty or thirty minutes for a small one. Remove to a hot platter; draw out the strings; garnish with slices of lemon well covered with chopped parsley and serve with Hollandaise sauce.
Thoroughly mix six ounces of flour with an ounce of olive oil, the yolk of an egg, and a pinch of salt. Stir in one gill of tepid water and allow the whole to stand for half an hour in a cool place. Next beat the white of an egg stiff and stir into the batter. Dip each fish into the mixture, then roll in bread crumbs and cook in boiling oil. Butter must not be used. In frying fish do not allow the fish to remain in the spider after it has been nicely browned, for this absorbs the fat and destroys the delicate flavor. Be sure that the fish is done. This rule applies to fish that is sautéd.
Take pieces of stale bread, break them in small bits, put them on a baking pan and place them in a moderate oven, watching closely that they do not scorch; then take them while hot and crisp and roll them, crushing them. Sift them, using the fine crumbs for breading cutlets, fish, croquettes, etc. The coarse ones may be used for puddings, pancakes, etc.
1 can of fish, or 1 pint. 1 large cup of cracker or bread crumbs. 1 large cup of white sauce.
Prepare this dish almost as you did the scalloped oysters. Take out all the bones and skin and juice from the fish; butter a baking-dish, put in a layer of fish, then salt and pepper, then a layer of crumbs and butter, and a layer of white sauce, then fish, seasoning, crumbs and butter again, and have the crumbs on top. Dot over with butter and brown in the oven, or serve in small dishes.
Boil one-half pound of vermicelli in salted water, drain, and mix with two tablespoons of olive-oil and a little chopped-up parsley. Then set to one side to get cool.
Take five smelts, split them, take out the bones, and fry them slightly in one teaspoon of olive-oil.
Butter a pan and sprinkle it with bread crumbs. Then put into it one-half of the cold vermicelli. Pour over this some thick tomato sauce (one tablespoon of tomato paste cooked in two tablespoons of olive-oil). Then put in the smelts cut in two, some anchovy, a few capers, and three or four ripe olives chopped up with one mushroom. Then add the rest of the tomato sauce, then the other half of the vermicelli, and on top a layer of bread crumbs. Season all well with salt and pepper. Put the pan into a moderate oven, and cook about an hour and a quarter, adding a little olive-oil when necessary, so that it will not dry up too much.
Any fish may be used instead of the smelts, cutting it into thin strips.
Line a buttered baking-dish with cold flaked fish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper; add a layer of cold cooked rice, dot with butter; repeat and cover with cracker or bread crumbs. Bake fifteen to twenty minutes.
This is the most approved way of dressing sturgeon. Carefully take off the skin, as its oiliness will give the fish a strong and disagreeable taste when cooked. Cut from the tail-piece slices about half an inch thick, rub them with salt, and broil them over a clear fire of bright coals. Butter them, sprinkle them with cayenne pepper, and send them to table hot, garnished with sliced lemon, as lemon-juice is generally squeezed over them when eaten. Another way is to make a seasoning of bread-crumbs, sweet herbs, pepper and salt. First dip the slices of sturgeon, in beaten yolk of egg, then cover them with seasoning, wrap them up closely in sheets of white paper well buttered, broil them over a clear fire, and send them to table either with or without the papers.
