Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Fish Patd. — This is an excellent way of using any cold fish which may be left over from dinner. Free thoroughly from bones and shred fine enough fish to fill a pint measure ; add to it one quart of milk, two eggs, onequarter of a cupful of flour mixed smoothly with a little milk which has been reserved from the quart. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, onequarter of a teaspoonful of each. Mix the milk, flour, eggs, and spice smoothly together. Set it over the fire, and stir until it is as thick as cream. Put in a deep baking-dish alternate layers of sauce, fish, and bread-crumbs, in the order named, and set in the oven until it is slightly browned. Very little time is required, as almost all the ingredients have been previously cooked. It is an excellent dish for breakfast, lunch, or tea. Fish Rechauffde is always good heated over in the white sauce, which is the one essential for most dishes made of “ left-overs." Ordinary scallop shells, which are to be picked up at the sea-shore or purchased very cheaply at the hardware store, are really prettier than the more expensive ramekins which are usually used. Scalloped or creamed fish baked in them is improved by the addition of a spoonful of chopped pickle or cooked green peppers scattered over the top after they are baked. Fish a la Reine. — Pick 2 lbs. of any cold, fresh fish into small pieces. Put 2 ozs. of butter in a frying-pan, let melt, and add two table-spoonfuls of j sifted flour. Mix and thin with a pint of sweet milk. Add the fish, with a teacupful of chopped mushrooms, a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and a table-spoonful of chopped parsley. Stand the frying-pan over a kettle of water until the fish is heated. Beat the yolks of two eggs and mix in the stew. Serve in shells. Fish Salad. — The remains of any solid fish, such as cod, flounder, halibut, bass, etc., make very good salads, for which the following sauce will be found excellent, as it will be also for a vegetable salad : Bruise the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs with a wooden spoon and moisten with a raw egg; put this egg mixture into a bowl, with two salt-spoonfuls of salt, a little pepper, and a pinch of cayenne ; add by degrees oil and vinegar, alternately, until the required quantity, three table-spoonfuls of oil and one of vinegar, which may be tarragon, has been mixed. Keep the sauce stirred and well smoothed with the spoon. If liked, add half a teaspoonful of shred onion, and the same of chevril and tarragon, if plain vinegar has been used with the oil. Two table-spoonfuls of thick cream or melted butter will make the sauce richer and better, and the whites of eggs may be chopped and added to the salad. Fish Sandwich. — Chop the hardboiled yolks of four eggs, pound the coral of a lobster, add a tablespoonful of butter and two salted anchovies, boned and skinned ; mix all together into a paste ; season with salt, cayenne, and a squeeze of lemonjuice. Slice stale brown bread very thin, spread with the mixture, lay a crisp leaf of lettuce over each slice, cover with another slice of bread, cut the sandwiches in halves, and serve on a napkin. Fish, Sauce for Boiled. — Take some of the water in which the fish has been boiled, and simmer in it for a quarter of an hour an onion, an anchovy, and a table-spoonful of walnut catsup; Fish Steaks au Gratin Flounders, Fillets of