FISH.
=Filet of Bass.=--WASH and wipe the filets dry with a clean towel,
trimming away the fins with a pair of large scissors close to the filet.
Dust with salt and lay in a covered dish with a minced onion, the juice
of half a lemon and a bit of finely cut parsley and thyme. Let them
stand half an hour. Twenty minutes before serving wipe dry again, dust
lightly with flour, dip in well-beaten egg, then roll in fine bread
crumbs. When all are prepared, put in greased bag and cook twenty
minutes until a delicate brown. Arrange on a warm dish and serve with
parsley and lemon or sauce tartare. Filets of sole may be cooked in the
same way.
=Baked Blue Fish.=--Clean thoroughly, cut off head and tail and fill
with a soft bread stuffing. Tie up securely, rub over the outside of the
fish with sweet vegetable oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a
squeeze of lemon juice and slip into the greased bag. Seal and cook from
twenty to forty minutes according to weight. Serve with sliced lemon
rolled in fine cut parsley.
=A Breakfast Dish of Bloaters.=--Few people know how very nice smoked
and dried fish can be when cooked in a paper bag and seasoned in the
French fashion. Cut off the head and tail of the fish, loosen the skin
at the neck with a knife and holding it firmly between the knife and
finger, pull it off. Split the fish with a sharp knife, remove the
backbone and soak in cold water over night, or if you forget to do that,
for twenty minutes in water nearly at the boiling point. Arrange the
filets in a wooden baking dish, cover with milk, dot with bits of
butter, put in bag and bake in a hot oven for fifteen minutes. Garnish
with a little finely chopped parsley or sprigs of water cress and serve
with paper-bag baked potatoes. On a cool morning there are few more
appetizing breakfast dishes, while its cheapness puts it within the
reach of the most impecunious. For a change the filets may be baked in
buttered paper cases or cooked au gratin still in paper bags.
=Cat Fish.=--For the small sized cat fish--clean, wash, dry well, salt
and pepper inside and out, then grease well with butter or vegetable oil
and roll in fine, sifted bread crumbs or corn meal. Lay in a
well-greased bag on thin sliced bacon, put a few more slices of bacon on
top. Seal and cook half an hour.
=Codfish Cones.=--"Pick up" enough salt codfish to make two cupfuls of
the shreds. Cover with cold water and let stand for two hours, then
drain, make a cream sauce, using two level tablespoonfuls each butter
and flour, and one cupful of hot milk. Mash and season enough hot boiled
potatoes to measure two cupfuls, add sauce and fish and beat well with a
fork. Shape in small cones, brush with melted butter, dredge with fine
bread crumbs and put in a paper bag. Cook ten minutes. If desired some
thin slices of bacon can be cooked at the same time in a separate bag
and be used as a garnish for the cones.
=Codfish à la Crême.=--Cook the fish first in boiling salted water which
has been very slightly acidulated with vinegar. Let it cook until the
flesh separates from the bones. After draining thoroughly and removing
the skin and bones, break the flesh into large flakes. Pour a highly
seasoned white sauce over it. It may now be cooked in a wooden baking
dish in the bag, or it may be prepared as follows: Press it into the
form of an oblong mould, using only just enough sauce to hold the flakes
together. Not as much sauce is needed as when the fish is browned in a
baking dish. Brush the top liberally with melted butter, sprinkle with
rolled cracker crumbs. Put the mold in a paper bag in the oven, and let
the fish acquire a nutty, crisp crust. Send to the table garnished with
lemon and parsley or thin slices of tomato and a few sprays of water
cress.
=Paper Bagged Eels.=--Eels may be cooked in a paper bag without growing
as hard as they are apt to do as ordinarily treated. Allow one-half
pound of eels (after they are dressed) to a person. Wash them
thoroughly, removing all blood from slit in eels. Cut in two-inch
pieces, put in a dish and sprinkle a teaspoonful of salt to every pound
over them. Now pour over them boiling water, enough to cover well, and
let stand until water is cold. Pour water off and leave eels where they
will drain until nearly dry. Take sufficient Indian meal to roll them
in, add a little pepper to it and roll each piece until well covered.
Place in a well-greased bag and cook about twenty minutes, when they
will be a rich brown, thoroughly cooked and deliciously juicy.
=Flounder à la Meuniére.=--Chop a small shallot and mix with a
teaspoonful of anchovy paste, a squeeze of lemon juice, an ounce of
butter, a little chopped parsley, a dash of cayenne, salt and pepper to
taste. Put the fish with the seasoning inside of a well-buttered bag,
after dredging the fish with flour. Pour a tablespoonful of melted
butter over the fish, seal up and cook. A two-pound fish, whole,
requires thirty minutes. The same weight of filets cook in eight
minutes.
=Filets of Flounder.=--Remove the filets from a medium sized flounder
and cut each filet in two. Season with salt and pepper and a few drops
of lemon juice and fold each filet in two or roll up skin side inwards.
Put a small piece of butter, or a teaspoonful of vegetable oil on top of
each and place carefully in the well-greased bag. Seal the mouth of the
bag, and cook about ten minutes on the wire grid in a hot oven.
Remove from the bag, lift carefully on to a hot platter, garnish with
water cress or parslied lemon slices and serve.
=Finnan Haddie.=--Pick out a fish that is thick through the centre,
weighing about two pounds. Soak in cold water, after washing well, for
an hour. Brush all over with melted butter, dredge with flour, put in a
well-buttered bag, skin side down, dot with butter and pour over it a
cup of hot milk. Seal securely and bake in a very hot oven twenty
minutes. The fish may be served whole, or flaked--free from bones and
skin--and served with cream sauce.
=Finnan Haddie.=--Prepare in the regular way, lay in wood cookery dish,
skin side down, season with bits of butter, add a small cupful of warm
milk, put in bag and seal. Bake twenty-five minutes and serve from the
dish with cream sauce. This eliminates the washing of dishes with the
strong fishy odor.
=Fish Cakes.=--Use for this two cupfuls cold fish freed from skin and
bones and chopped fine, and the same amount of cooked, seasoned and
mashed potatoes. Mix well, season with salt and pepper, add two
tablespoonfuls vegetable oil or melted butter and two tablespoonfuls of
milk. Whip the mixture until as "light as feathers." Shape into small,
flat cakes of even size. Beat up an egg on a plate, then egg the cakes
and roll deftly in the finest of sifted bread crumbs and again shape.
Put in well-greased bag, seal and put in a hot oven. Cook about twenty
minutes.
=New England Fish Pie.=--Have a pound of cod steak boned and cut in
pieces. Roll each piece in slightly salted flour, and season with
paprika or white pepper. Lay in the well-greased bag and put on top of
the fish a layer of oysters with their juice and a squeeze of lemon
juice. Sprinkle with a layer of finely rolled and buttered cracker
crumbs, dot with a few bits of butter, seal the bag and bake slowly
fifteen minutes. Have ready some hot mashed potato well seasoned with
cream and butter. Take the grid and bag from the oven, tear off the top
of the bag, spread the potato over the fish like a crust, brush over
with a little milk mixed with a portion of an egg yolk and set back in
oven for five minutes to brown and glaze, turning the grid with the bag
twice during the cooking. Cut open the bag, put the fish balls on a hot
platter, garnish and serve plain with a tomato sauce.
=Fish Soufflé.=--One pint of boiled halibut or other delicate fish,
freed from bones and skin and mashed to a pulp. Season with one small
teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and one teaspoonful of onion
juice. Melt a large tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, and cook in
it for three minutes a tablespoonful of flour. Add slowly a cupful of
milk and the seasoned fish pulp. Beat two eggs thoroughly and add the
fish to them. Pour all into bag, seal and bake twenty minutes in a
moderate oven, half an hour.
=Planked Fish Bag-Cooked.=--Planked fish responds beautifully to the
paper-bag treatment, and there is no better way of developing the
distinctive flavor of any of the delicate white-meated fish. The plank
however should not be as thick as that usually required. It must be of
hard-wood, hickory, cherry, live oak, cedar or ash--well seasoned and
sawed about a half inch in thickness, rounded and tapered at one end
like an ironing board. This to accommodate the tail of the fish. If
cooking small fish use the oval wood cooking dishes made of maple wood.
Make it very hot in the oven or under the gas flame, then grease well
with vegetable oil, olive or the refined cotton seed, and lay on it the
fish cleaned, split down the back, seasoned, oiled all over with the
sweetest of vegetable oils or butter and spread out as flat as possible
with the skin side next to the hot board. Slip into the greased bag and
fasten tightly. If you use the gas oven for planking your fish, as most
of us do, turn on both burners until the oven is very hot. Then set in
the fish with a trivet under the bag the same as if you were cooking
without the plank.
Bake from thirty to forty-five minutes, then serve piping hot on the
plank which has been taken out of the bag, set on a big japanned tray
and garnished with hot mashed potato pressed through a tube in rose
fashion at regular intervals, alternating with mounds of peas or carrot
dice, sprigs of watercress or parsley and thin slices of lemon rolled in
fine minced parsley. Accompany with sauce tartare or parsley butter.
=Halibut à la Poulette.=--Take two pounds of halibut, arrange in
filets, freeing from skin and bone; then cut into narrow strips. Season
with salt, pepper and lemon juice; cut two onions in slices and lay on
the filets, then set away for half an hour. At the end of this time have
ready one-third cup melted butter or refined vegetable oil. Dip the
filets in this, roll, skewer into shape and dredge with flour. Arrange
in a well-buttered bag, seal and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven.
Serve with white sauce and two hard boiled eggs, sliced for a garnish.
=Herring au Gratin.=--Soak and filet the herring. Butter a bag and strew
the bottom with the bread crumbs well-buttered, a layer of grated cheese
and a little minced chives or parsley. Sprinkle with pepper and lay in
the filets of herring, plain or alternately with sliced tomato. Cover
with more crumbs, parsley, cheese and butter, close the bag, and bake
fifteen minutes until a good brown.
=Herrings With Herbs.=--Take four dried herrings, bone them, fill the
cavities with a little (about half a teaspoonful to each fish) finely
minced shallot or chives, and parsley. Add a few fresh breadcrumbs and
tiny bits of butter. If liked, a tiny grate of nutmeg may be added as
well as a good dust of pepper. Put into a well-greased bag and bake in
the oven for ten minutes. Dish up and serve as hot as possible. Other
dried fish are excellent prepared in the same way.
=Kedgeree.=--Mix one cup of shredded fish with one cupful of boiled
rice, tender and well drained. Put into a well-buttered wooden baking
dish, while you prepare the sauce. Put into a saucepan one tablespoonful
each of butter and flour and as soon as melted and "bubbly," add one cup
of hot milk. Stir until smooth and thick, season with salt and pepper,
take from the fire, add the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, that have
been rubbed through a sieve, pour over the rice and fish. Put the dish
in a well-buttered bag and set in the oven until thoroughly hot and
delicately browned.
=Kippered Mackerel With Fine Herbs.=--Cut salt mackerel into filets, lay
them in a deep earthen dish and cover with boiling water. Leave in water
half a minute. Take out, wipe dry, dust with coarse black pepper and put
on top of each filet half a teaspoonful of minced parsley and chives or
onion and a bit of butter the size of a small walnut. Grease a bag well,
put in the filets; seal and cook for twenty minutes in a hot oven. Serve
hot, with brown bread and butter.
=Salmon Loaf.=--Mince one can of salmon, removing all bits of bone. Add
to it a cupful fine, stale bread crumbs, two beaten eggs, a half cupful
milk and salt, pepper, parsley and lemon juice to season. Put in a
wooden mould in a buttered bag and bake or steam for half an hour. Turn
out and serve hot with a white or Hollandaise sauce.
=Scalloped Salmon.=--Put a layer of soft grated bread crumbs in the
bottom of a wooden baking dish that has been well-buttered. Sprinkle the
bread crumbs with salt, pepper and bits of butter. Cover with a layer of
flaked salmon, seasoning with salt and pepper and pouring in some of the
oil and liquor from the can. Over this spread another layer of the
seasoned crumbs, then more salmon and so on until the dish is filled.
Let the last layer be of buttered crumbs moistening slightly with a
little milk. Spread a little soft butter over the surface and bake in a
buttered bag for half an hour in a hot oven to a rich brown.
=Salmon Soufflé.=--Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and
melt without browning. Add one tablespoonful of flour, stir until
blended, then pour in one cup of warm milk. When thickened and smooth,
add the yolk of one egg, one cup of salmon flaked, a tablespoonful of
cream and a tiny bit of essence of anchovy and pepper to season. Mix
carefully and well, fold in the white of one egg beaten until stiff and
dry; then fill ramekins or wooden dish three-quarters full. Put in a bag
and brown in a quick oven. Serve very hot. Chopped parsley may be added
if desired.
=Baked Shad.=--In dressing the fish, cut as small an opening as
possible. Wash well, dry and fill with a dressing made in this way. Pour
over one cupful dry bread crumbs enough cold water or milk to moisten.
Add a teaspoonful melted butter, and a teaspoonful minced parsley. Mix
thoroughly and fill the fish, sewing or skewering the opening together.
Use a wood cookery dish and put into a buttered bag two or three slices
of wafer-thin salt pork and having salted and peppered the outside of
the fish lay carefully on top the sliced pork. Lay as many more thin
slices on top of the fish, or wipe over with olive oil. Seal, set in the
oven and bake three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven. Serve with
sauce tartare or a good brown sauce enriched with a small glass of
Madeira.
=Shad Roe.=--As soon as the fish comes from the water or market, plunge
the roe into boiling salted water to which a tablespoonful of lemon
juice or vinegar has been added. Cook gently about ten minutes, lift out
with a skimmer and slip into a bowl of ice water to become firm. When
ready to cook, split lengthwise if plump and full, brush over with olive
oil, melted butter or refined cotton seed oil, and tuck at once into
the well-greased bag. Some cooks prefer to dust the roe with fine bread
crumbs, lay into beaten egg, then dust once more with sifted crumbs
before "bagging". Serve simply with lemon and cress, with sauce tartare
or mayonnaise, or with a sauce prepared as follows: Put into a saucepan
two tablespoonfuls butter or olive oil, one tablespoonful lemon juice,
and chopped parsley, and a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce. Heat to the
boiling point and pour over the roe.
=Smelts.=--Smelts skewered in rings, using a wooden toothpick to hold
heads and tails together, dipped in milk, well floured and fried in deep
fat, make an attractive fish course. The use of a wood cookery dish here
is strongly recommended. The skewer can be removed before serving, as
the fish will usually keep its shape. Garnish the plate on which the
fish are served with cress and slices of lemon rolled in finely minced
parsley. If the smelts are to furnish the main part of the meal, pile
them in the center of a hot platter and surround with a border of mashed
potato, or mound the potato and circle with the fish for a border.
=Bagged Weak Fish.=--Well grease a bag, with butter or vegetable oil.
Prepare a weak fish as for frying by seasoning with salt, pepper and
dredging well with flour. Rub melted butter on both sides, place it in
the bag, skin side down, lightly dredge the upper side again with flour
and dot with butter. Peel and cut an onion in half, put in the bag but
not on the fish. Close the bag, seal and cook on the wire rack or
broiler in a hot oven for twenty-five minutes.
=White Fish Planked.=--Remove the head and tail and bone of the fish.
Wash carefully and place in wooden cookery dish, skin side down. Season
with salt, pepper, bits of butter and chopped onion. Roll a half dozen
oysters in cracker crumbs, place on top of fish, and put the dish in the
bag. Bake forty minutes. Set the wooden dish on a hot platter and serve.
The skin of the fish and remnants can be left in the dish which can then
be thrown away. Halibut and mackerel are especially fine when prepared
in these wood cookery dishes as it holds them intact in process of
cooking and serving.