The freshest full-roed herrings must be taken for this purpose. Scale
twenty of the shortest and fattest you can get in the middle of the
season, take off the heads, tails, fins, and open them at the bellies,
clean all out, scrape the backbone, and washing the fish in salt and
water, wipe them dry and let them lie until next day, after rubbing a
dessert-spoonful of good moist sugar into the inside of each fish. Lay
them upon their backs in any vessel not too deep, and cover the fish
over with the following mixture――the roes should be nicely washed,
dried, and laid by the side of the fish:
Coarse sugar 1 lb.
Bay salt, in fine powder ¾ lb.
Black pepper 1 oz.
Eschalots, minced 1 oz.
Nutmegs, grated 1 oz.
putting half the fish in one layer then a layer of the mixture, and
then a layer of fish above that, and the spices covering all; so let
them lie covered up with a cloth three days. Then wipe the fish dry,
place the roes inside, cut them across in two parts, tie up in rolls
with calico, and lay them with plenty of bay leaves and four laurel
leaves in a deep dish and bake them, just covered over with good sound
porter; then while warm pour off the liquor, and set the fish on a
sieve to go cold, and next day put each one into a white earthenware
jar and cover with olive oil with the same precautions as before. In
two months they will be mellow and rich and greatly liked. The porter
in which they were baked, being boiled twenty minutes with a dozen of
shalots and cayenne, will be a very good cold sauce for chops, steaks,
fish, &c.