Fast-Day Cookery; or, Meals without MeatJohnson, Grace
Religion
Fast-Day Cookery; or, Meals without Meat
Johnson, Grace
Cooking (Fish); Lenten menus; Vegetarian cooking
I have not given recipes for plain boiling and frying; most cooks know
how to do this perfectly well, and it would only be repeating what is
in other books. I will only add that most of the sauces poured over
plain boiled fish seem to change its character entirely; for instance,
boiled fillets of skate smothered in onion sauce taste very much like
white meat. Some of the brown sauces, too, poured over good firm
fleshed fish, seem very much like chicken or rabbit.
I have put all the fish recipes together, both those suited to
_entrées_ and the more substantial. I have done this because it is
rather a difficult matter to arrange how the different dishes are to be
served. Some are quite content with an _entrée_ after the soup; others
want something more substantial to take the place of the usual joint;
they can, however, have fish pies, baked fish, boiled fish, fried fish,
etc., which answer the purpose very well, and the lighter dishes can be
used as _entrées_, and some even as savouries. A dinner of four or five
courses can easily be had from these recipes.
1. Eel Pie.
Clean and skin two pounds of eels; cut them into pieces two inches
in length, put them in a pie dish thus: a layer of fish, then sliced
onions, a few cloves, and sliced tomatoes, some sliced hard-boiled
eggs, and so on till the dish is full. Mix some salt and Nepaul pepper
to taste, in a little warm water, say a _small_ tea-cup; pour it over
the fish. Cover with a nice crust either light or short, and bake a
nice brown. Serve with a nice frill round the dish.
This is a very substantial and delicious dish. The short crust is more
digestible and satisfying than the light, but this is a matter of
individual taste.
2. Eel Stew.
Clean and skin two pounds of eels; cut them into two-inch pieces. Chop
one onion and two beads of garlic very small, fry in three ounces of
butter with one tablespoon of flour till it is a nice brown; add half
a pint of water and let it thicken; strain, then add the eels to the
sauce. One tablespoon of tarragon vinegar, one tablespoon of cloves,
one tablespoon of chervil, Nepaul pepper and salt to taste, the grated
rind of half a lemon, and a little grated nutmeg. A few turned olives
and button mushrooms considerably improve it, but where expense is an
object these may be left out.
3. Salt Fish and Egg Pie.
Get a good dry salt fish about three pounds. Soak it all night in
water, then put it in the oven till soft enough to handle, remove all
skin and bone, and make into nice large flakes; put a layer of this in
a pie dish, then a layer of sliced onions, a few cloves, a sprinkling
of lemon thyme, some sliced hard-boiled eggs, and so on till the dish
is full. Now mix half a cup of water with half a cup of good thick
tomato conserve, add Nepaul pepper to it to taste; pour it over the
pie, and cover with either a light or a short crust, and bake a nice
brown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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