Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Fish, Fried (Jewish fashion). The Jews, like our continental neighbours, use oil for frying. Soyer gives the following excellent recipe for cooking fish : — Lay one or more pounds of halibut in a dish, with salt over the top, and water not to cover the fish. Let it stay one hour for the salt to penetrate. Drain and drj' it ; then cut out the bone, and take off the fins. Divide the pieces into slices half an inch thick. Put a quarter of a pound of oil, butter, lard, or dripping into a frying-pan. Dip the fish into a batter, and fry till the pieces are of a nice colour, and all sides alike. When quite done, take them out with a slice, drain, and serve with any sauce liked. AU fish, especially those containing oil, are improved by this method — the oil is absorbed by the batter. Fish Grenade. — Take off the skin and scrape the meat from two large whitings— use a wooden spoon for the purpose — and press it through a wire sieve. Scrape also two ounces of fat bacon, and pound them together in a mortar, with two ounces of butter and the beaten yolks of two eggs ; add, while pounding, two dessert-spoonfuls of chopped parsley, a small bit of garlic, and a blade of mace, both crushed before being added to the rest. Bind PIS (211 ) PIS •with the whites of two eggs. This forcemeat being ready, put it aside until required. Cut out the bones from half a dozen red mullet — do not injure the skin — divide them into strips lengthwise, of an inch and a haK wide ; also do the same with a rather large sole, splitting the fish without breaking the skin. Stew a sweetbread, eight or ten bearded oysters, an artichoke bottom, and a couple of truffles minced, for about fifteen minutes in butter. Have ready a pan lined with slices of fat bacon ; let the slices lie close together, so that no part of the pan be uncovered; upon this place four diamond-shaped pieces of carrot along the centre, then cover the bacon with the strips of fish, and on these place a part of the forcemeat. The sweetbread must come next, to be again covered with the remainder of the forcemeat. Wet the top -with white of egg, cover with a buttered paper, and bake, with the lid of the pan closed for twenty minutes. Fish, Jelly for. — Boil down a skate, cowheel, or calf's foot, until it will jelly. Add three quarts of water, and then a good slice of ham without fat, three blades of mace, part of the rind of a lemon, and a stick of horse-radish. Strain, and when cold, take off the fat, and boil the mixture up without stirring, putting in a glass of sherry and four or five eggs. After the boiling let it stand haK an hour, then pour it through a sieve and cloth. It will be fit for use when cold, and should be laid over the fish roughly. Probable cost, 2s. 6d. for this quantity. Fish. Kedgeree.— Pick some cooked salmon, turbot, or other fish into flakes, and boil a cupful of rice in good white broth ; add the fish to the rice, and when hot through, stir in an egg, and serve. Time, thirty minutes to boil rice. Probable cost, exclusive of fish, 4d.