2 or 3 slices salt pork 6 medium sized potatoes 1 small onion chopped fine 3 lbs. fresh fish 2 teaspoons salt 1/8 teaspoon pepper 2 quarts milk
Cut pork in small pieces; fry crisp and turn into chowder kettle. Pare potatoes and cut into pieces. Add with part of onion. Cut fish into convenient pieces, and lay over potatoes; sprinkle with rest of onion; add seasoning and enough water to come to top of fish; cover closely and cook until potatoes are done; add milk and let it scald up again. If desired split pilot crackers may be added just before last boiling. If milk is not available a somewhat smaller quantity of water may be used.
Bluefish, young cod, mackerel, salmon, large trout, and all other fish, when they weigh between half a pound and four pounds, are nice for broiling. When smaller or larger they are not so good. Always use a double broiler, which, before putting the fish into it, rub with either butter or a piece of salt pork. This prevents sticking. The thickness of the fish will have to be the guide in broiling. A bluefish weighing four pounds will take from twenty minutes to half an hour to cook. Many cooks brown the fish handsomely over the coals and then put it into the oven to finish broiling. Where the fish is very thick, this is a good plan. If the fish is taken from the broiler to be put into the oven, it should be slipped on to a tin sheet, that it may slide easily into the platter at serving time; for nothing so mars a dish of fish as to have it come to the table broken. In broiling, the inside should be exposed to the fire first, and then the skin. Great care must be taken that the skin does not burn. Mackerel will broil in from twelve to twenty minutes, young cod (also called scrod) in from twenty to thirty minutes, bluefish in from twenty to thirty minutes, salmon, in from twelve to twenty minutes, and whitefish, bass, mullet, etc., in about eighteen minutes. All kinds of broiled fish can be served with a seasoning of salt, pepper and butter, or with any of the following sauces: bearer noir, maître d' hôtel, Tartare, sharp, tomato and curry. Always, when possible, garnish with parsley or something else green.
The head and feet being well scalded and cleaned, open the head, taking the brains, wash, pick and cleanse, salt and pepper and parsley them and put bye in a cloth; boil the head, feet and heartslet one and quarter, or one and half hour, sever out the bones, cut the skin and meat in slices, drain the liquor in which boiled and put by; clean the pot very clean or it will burn too, make a layer of the slices, which dust with a composition made of black pepper one spoon, of sweet herbs pulverized, two spoons (sweet marjoram and thyme are most approved) a tea spoon of cayenne, one pound butter, then dust with flour, then a layer of slices with slices of veal and seasoning till compleated, cover with the liquor, stew gently three quarters of an hour. To make the forced meat balls--take one and half pound veal, one pound grated bread, 4 ounces raw salt pork, mince and season with above and work with 3 whites into balls, one or one an half inch diameter, roll in flour, and fry in very hot butter till brown, then chop the brains fine and stir into the whole mess in the pot, put thereto, one third part of the fryed balls and a pint wine or less, when all is heated thro' take off and serve in tureens, laying the residue of the balls and hard boiled and pealed eggs into a dish, garnish with slices of lemon.
1/2 quart of stock 2 slices of lean pork, or a ham bone 2 tomatoes, fresh or canned 1 cup of rice 2 tablespoons of dried beans 1 tablespoon of peas, fresh or canned 2 onions
Put into the stock the slices of pork, cut into small pieces; or, if desired, a ham bone may be substituted for the pork. Add the tomatoes, cut into small pieces also, the onions, in small pieces, and the rice. Boil all together until the rice is cooked. Then add the beans and the peas and cook a little longer. The soup is ready when it is thick. If desired, this chowder can be made with fish broth instead of the stock, and with the addition of shrimps which have been taken from their shells.
Mince the onion, parsley, and bacon very finely, and put them into a basin with the seasoning and crumbs, and mix thoroughly. Butter a dish in which the fish can be both cooked and served. Spread half the seasoning on it, wash and dry the fish and lay it on this bed of seasoning; spread the rest of the seasoning on the top, pour over gently the gravy. Cover with a few raspings and put the butter on in tiny pieces. Put it into a quick oven and bake from 15 to 20 minutes, according to the thickness of the fish. Pin a paper collar round the dish, and serve at once.
3 lbs. fish 2 cups diced potatoes 1/3 cup chopped onion 1/2 cup chopped salt pork 1 teaspoon salt 1/8 teaspoon cayenne 1 cup peas 2 cups cold water 2 tablespoons fat 2 tablespoons flour 1 cup diced carrots 1 pint scalded milk
Cut fish into small pieces. Cover bones, fins and head with cold water. Simmer 15 minutes; strain. Cook onion and salt pork until brown. In kettle place layers of fish and mixed vegetables. To water in which bones, etc., have been cooked, add the seasonings. Mix all ingredients. Cook forty minutes, slowly, covered.
Six pounds of any kind of fish, large or small; three large pints of water, quarter of a pound of pork, or, half a cupful of butter; two large onions, three table-spoonfuls of flour, salt and pepper to taste. Cut the heads from the fish, and cut out all the bones. Put the heads and bones on to boil in the three pints of water. Cook gently half an hour. In the meanwhile cut the pork in slices, and fry brown. Cut the onions in slices, and fry in the pork fat. Stir the dry flour into the onion and fat, and cook three minutes, stirring all the time. Now pour over this the water in which the bones have been cooking, and simmer ten minutes. Have the fish cut in pieces about three inches square. Season well with salt and pepper, and place in the stew-pan. Season the sauce with salt and pepper, and strain on the fish. Cover tight, and simmer twenty minutes. A bouquet of sweet herbs, simmered with the bones, is an improvement. Taste to see if the sauce is seasoned enough, and dish on a large platter. Garnish with potato balls and parsley. The potato balls are cut from the raw potatoes with a vegetable scoop, and boiled ten minutes in salted water. Put them in little heaps around the dish.
Take a leg of veal, take off the thick part and cut in thin slices for collops, beat them with a paste-pin 'till they be very thin; season them with mace, pepper and salt; fry them over a quick fire, not over brown; when they are fried put them into a stew-pan with a little gravy, two or three spoonfuls of white wine, two spoonfuls of oyster-pickle if you have it, and a little lemon-peel; then shake them over a stove in a stew-pan, but don't let them boil over much, it only hardens your collops; take the fat part of your veal, stuff it with forc'd-meat, and boil it; when it is boiled lay it in the middle of your dish with the collops; lay about your collops slices of crisp bacon, and forc'd-meat-balls. Garnish your dish with slices of lemon and oysters, or mushrooms.
First fry a few thin slices of salt pork until brown in an iron frying pan; then take it up on a hot platter and keep it warm until the halibut is fried. After washing and drying two pounds of sliced halibut, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, dredge it well with flour, put it into the hot pork drippings and fry brown on both sides; then serve the pork with the fish. Halibut broiled in slices is a very good way of cooking it, broiled the same as Spanish mackerel.
