Miss Corson's practical American cookery and household management

The directions given for boning, boiling, frying, broiling, or baking any one kind of fish may be applied to any other which has the same general characteristics of size and texture. The very dry-fleshed fish should be served with a sauce : fish which are either watery or very oily are best when cooked with direct exposure to the fire, as in broiling. These hints will serve as guides for more extended practice in the cookery of fish. HOW TO THAW FROZEN FISH, So much naturally frozen or refrigerated fish is used, that some directions concerning it may prove useful. When the fish is taken from the ice, put it into a large tub of cold water, and let it remain until the flesh is flexible enough to cut ; when the fish is so far freed from frost as to permit a cut to be made for drawing the intestines, remove them, and put the fish again in the cold water until every particle of frost is extracted, and the fish is perfectly flexible ; then drain it, and wipe it dry ; cook it according to any chosen recipe. LARGE FISH BOILED IN SLICES. When it is desired to serve an unusually large fish, and the facilities for cooking are limited, the fish may be cut in many slices, as shown in the accompanying engraving, carefully Large Fish boiled in Siices, boiled, either in a cloth or on the drainer of the fish-ketde, and then so placed upon the dish as to restore the form of the fish. This engraving is copied from Dubois, and represents a sterlet, or small Russian sturgeon. Large salmon, pike, pickerel, or muscalonge, among American fish, may be dressed in this way. The garnish of the sterlet here shown is button mushrooms, truffles, and turned vegetables. Part of a sturgeon may be boiled in slices in this way. BOILED TURBOT WITH LOBSTER SAUCE. The thick gelatinous fins and skin of turbot, and the thick slices of flesh from the middle of the back, are the parts most esteemed by epicures ; and therefore in dressing turbot the fins must be retained. Wash the fish thoroughly, using plenty of coarse salt to remove the slime which clings to it as it does to blackfish, and rinse it in plenty of cold water ; remove the intestines, and again wash the fish ; then put it over the fire in a large kettle, with enough salted cold water to entirely cover it, and let the turbot boil gently about twenty minutes, or until the flesh begins to separate from the bones; the fish must not be overdone. When it is .cooked, take it up carefully, garnish it witli parsley or lobster, as shown in the cuts which refer to carving it, and serve it with lobster sauce. LOBSTER SAUCE. ' To make lobster sauce, boil a lobster as directed in the recipe for boiled lobster, and remove it from the shell ; rub the coral through a sieve with a potato-masher, and mix it with an equal quantity of butter ; for a pint of sauce put a tablespoonful each of butter and flour over the fire in a thick saucepan, and stir them until they bubble ; then gradually stir in half a pint each of milk and water ; season the sauce, with salt and cayenne, color it with the lobster butter, put in a cupful of lobster cut in half-inch pieces, and, as soon as the sauce boils, serve it with the turbot. BOILED HALIBUT.