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.
Either cold boiled salmon or the canned variety may be used. In the latter event wash the fish, in cold water, drain and expose to the outside air for at least one hour, as this removes any suggestion of the can. Flake the fish into small particles and to each cupful of the fish add the same quantity of shredded lettuce, one coarsely chopped hard-boiled egg, three slices of minced cucumber and six chopped olives. Mix the ingredients well, moisten with either a mayonnaise or boiled dressing and serve in individual portions in nest of heart lettuce leaves. Mask each portion with a tablespoon of dressing and garnish with capers and grated egg yolk.
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.
Take a quart of White-Wine and a pint and a halfe of White-Wine- Vinegar, two quarts of Water, and almost a pint of Salt, a handfull of Rose-mary and Tyme; the Liquor must boyle before you put in your Fish and Herbs; the Eele with the skins must be put in a quarter of an hour before the Pike, with a little large Mace, and twenty cornes of Pepper.
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.
Keep on the head and fins. Make a force-meat or stuffing of grated bread crumbs, cold boiled ham or bacon minced fine, sweet marjoram, pepper, salt, and a little powdered mace or cloves. Moisten it with beaten yolk of egg. Stuff the inside of the fish with it, reserving a little to rub over the outside, having first rubbed the fish all over with yolk of egg. Lay the fish in a deep pan, putting its tail to its mouth. Pour into the bottom of the pan a little water, and add a jill of port wine, and a piece of butter rolled in flour. Bake it well, and when it is done, send it to table with the gravy poured round it. Garnish with slices of lemon. Any fish may be baked in the same manner. A large fish of ten or twelve pounds weight, will require about two hours baking.
Drain the liquor from a quart of fresh oysters. Put them in hot vinegar enough to cover them placed over the fire; let them remain until plump, but not cooked; then drop them immediately in cold water, drain off, and mix with them two pickled cucumbers cut fine, also a quart of celery cut in dice pieces, some seasoning of salt and pepper. Mix all well together, tossing up with a silver fork. Pour over the whole a "Mayonnaise dressing." Garnish with celery tips and slices of hard-boiled eggs arranged tastefully.
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.
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.
