VINTAGE RECIPES—FISH

“Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard”

or

Canadian Cook Book, 1881

FISH

To fry brook trout or any other small fish.

Clean the fish and let them lie a few minutes wrapped single in a clean dry towel; season with pepper and salt; roll in corn meal and fry in one-third butter and two-thirds lard; drain on a sieve and serve hot.

Wash the fish thoroughly in salt and water; spread it out flat on a wire broiler; sprinkle with salt and set in a dipper in the oven; bake twenty minutes, then brown over hot coals. Pour melted butter over and serve.

A medium size fish is preferable.

A fish weighing from four to six pounds is a good size to bake. It should be cooked whole to look well. Make a dressing of bread crumbs. Butter, salt and a little salt pork, chopped fine. (parsley and onions, if you please); mix this with one egg. Fill the body, sew it up, and lay it in a large dipper; put across some strips of salt pork to flavor it. Put a pint of water and a little salt in the pan. Bake it an hour and a half. Baste frequently. After taking up the fish, thicken the gravy and pour over it.

Have ready in sauce-pan one cup cream, diluted with a few spoonfuls hot water; stir in carefully two tablespoons melted butter and a little chopped parsley; heat this in a vessel filled with hot water. Pour in the gravy from the dripping pan of fish. Boil thick.

Two ounces butter, one-half cup vinegar, one teaspoon ground mustard, one teaspoon salt, a little pepper; let this boil. Then add one cup milk and yolks of two eggs. Let this just boil, stirring all the time.

Cut two or three slices of salt pork into dice pieces, fry to a crisp. And turn the whole into your chowder kettle. Pare half a dozen medium-sized potatoes and cut them in two. Peel a small onion and chop it fine. Put the potatoes into the kettle with part of the onion. Cut the fish (which should be fresh cod or haddock) into convenient pieces and lay over the potatoes; sprinkle over it the rest of the onion, season well with salt and pepper, and add just enough water to come to the top of the fish. Pour over the whole a quart can of tomatoes, cover closely, and allow about as long to cook as it takes to boil potatoes; then add two quarts of milk, and let it scald up again. Season with “Sauce Piquant” or tomato catsup, and more salt and pepper.

Forty-five clams, chopped; one quart sliced potatoes, one half pint sliced onions. Cut a few slices salt pork, fryp to a crisp, chop fine. Put in a kettle a little fat from the pork, a layer of potatoes, clams. Onions, a little pepper and salt; another layer of chopped pork, potatoes, etc, until all are in. Pour over the juice of the clams. Cook three hours, being careful not to burn.

Add a teacup of milk just before serving.

Put the fish in cold water, set on the back of the stove; when water gets hot, pour off and put on cold again until the fish is fresh enough; then pick it up. Boil potatoes and mash them; mix fish and potatoes together while potatoes are hot, taking two thirds potatoes and one-third fish. Put in plenty of butter; make into balls, and fry in plenty of lard. Have the lard hot before putting in balls.

Fifty shell oysters, one quart sweet cream; butter , pepper and salt to taste. Put the cream and oysters in separate kettles to heat, the oysters in their own liquid, and let them come to a boil; when sufficiently cooked, skim; then take them out of the liquid and put in some dish to keep warm. Put the cream and liquid together. Season to taste and thicken with powdered cracker. When sufficiently thick, sir in the oysters.

Put a layer of rolled crackers in bottom of pudding dish, layer of oysters, drained; season with butter, pepper and salt; so on till the dish is full. Then pour over coffeecup of milk. Bake three-quarters of an hour.

Put stale bread in oven to dry, roll then put in dish a layer of crumbs, layer of clams, cut in small pieces; season with butter and pepper; so on until dish is full. Pour over the clam, bake one-half hour. Cracker crumbs may be used in place of bread.

Two gallons of large oysters, drain and rinse them; put one pint of the oyster juice and one pint of vinegar over the fire, scald and skim until clear, add one tablespoonful of whole pepper, one tablespoonful of cloves, one tablespoonful of mace and even tablespoonful of salt; scald a minute and then throw in the oysters, let them just come to a boil.

The oysters should be pickled the day before they are wanted, as they grow tough after standing a few days in the vinegar.

Take large sized oysters, drain and dry; dip in egg and bread cracker crumbs. Fry in hot butter or lard.