The home cook book

Take one-pound can of salmon, pick out all the bones, strain off the liquor, and do not use it. Chop the salmon very fine, season with salt and red pepper, and add the yolk of one hard-boiled egg rubbed fine. Mix all together and beat with enough drawn butter to allow it to mold. Mold to shape in teacups. Set in a cold place to stiffen. When eating slice it across, beginning at the top, and eat with a little vinegar. This is very delicate. FRIED SMELTS Wash the smelts, split and clean them, and cut away fins and gills. Roll in a mixture of pepper, salt, and fine breadcrumbs, dip in oil and roll again in the breadcrumbs. Put the tail in the mouth and pin together with a wooden toothpick. Put a few at a time in the frying-basket, plunge into hot fat, and fry till they are a crisp brown. When all are fried, put together in the frying-basket, plunge once more into the hot fat, and serve on a hot platter with lemon quarters and a tartare sauce. If you serve with the wooden skewers they must be small and out of sight. If they are large, draw them out. FRIED BROOK TROUT Clean, wipe quickly with cold water, and dry the trout. Split to the tail. Put salt, a dash of pepper, and a sprinkle of flour over them. In a frying-pan put salt pork cut in small pieces, or, if you have not pork, use equal quantities of butter and lard. When your pork fries out, and the fat is hot, take out the pork and put in the fish. Fry quickly a delicate brown, turning two or three times. Put on a very hot platter, lay on the crisp pieces of the pork, and send to the table still sizzling. With these delicate fish never serve any sauce or relish, for the same reason one can not add a perfume to the rose. SALT FISH 67 S A L T F I S H Soaking Salt Fish— Baked Salt Cod— Codfish Balls— Creamed Salt Cod— Drawn Butter Salt Cod— Picked Salt Cod— Salt Codfish Pie— Toasted Salt Cod— Salt Cod with Tomato Sauce — Boiled Finnan Haddie— Broiled Smoked Herring — Salt Mackerel with Milk Sauce — Broiled Salt Mackerel SOAKING SALT FISH DO NOT soak salt mackerel for next day's breakfast in warm water, or too long. By bad soaking the fish is sometimes spoiled, made flabby and tasteless, and voted a failure, when if properly treated it would be appetizing. Use cold water, or, if milk is plenty with you, cold milk, and keep while soaking in a cool place. [See illustration, Plate IV.] BAKED SALT COD 'Mix a cup of salt codfish picked up fine with twice its quantity of mashed potatoes. Add a pint of milk or cream, and then stir in two well-beaten eggs and half a cup of butter. Taste and see if the dish will not be salt enough without adding salt. Stir in a dash of cayenne, and put in a baking dish and bake half an hour in a moderate oven. CODFISH BALLS Codfish balls may be made in simpler fashion by using one cup of soft-boiled potatoes, mashed while hot and fresh into half a cup of shredded codfish. Fish and potato should be well mashed together, seasoned with a tablespoon of butter and a beaten egg, dropped into a pan or kettle of boiling hot lard and fried till a delicate brown. When lifted from the fat they should drain a moment on brown paper and go to the table hot.