The new Annie Dennis cook book

A fire of well seasoned split oak is built in a long compact line, and inch-thick oak planks are propped before it until heated through. Time improves the quality of these planks, and many well-charred ones have been in use for four or five seasons. The fish, cleaned, split and rubbed with a little salt, are nailed fast to these planks, and backs sizzling as they touch the wood, which slowly cooks that side. The shadded planks are propped close to the fire until the fish begin to brown, and then removed a few inches, the cooks deftly turning one edge of the planks uppermost and then the other, to retain the juices evenly. As many as two hundred shad are often planked at once, a row extending on either side of the fire, and the cooks patroling the line and basting them as they brown with a mixture of melted butter and Worcester sauce. The cooks are as indifferent to smoke and flame as so many Casabiancas, and watch carefully that all brown together evenly and that no errant breeze sends smoke or ashes or flame against the buttered planks. To Fry Shad or Other Fish Clean, cut, wash, wipe dry, sprinkle with salt and pepper; dip in meal and fry in enough boiling lard to cover the fish, turning over once. Or, dip in well beaten egg, roll in bread or cracker crumbs, and fry as directed. SALMON Creamed Lake Salmon Scrape, clean and salt three or four pounds of fresh lake salmon; put in baking pan, with a teacupful of boiling water, and one teaspoonful of fresh butter. Baste frequently, letting it cook ten minutes to each pound of fish, adding more water if necessary. A few minutes before taking up prepare the cream sauce thus : Scald one-half teacupful of sweet milk, same of sweet cream, small lump of butter; pour into it the gravy, stir, pour over the fish, let boil up once and serve. A little parsley or celery in the cream (chopped fine) adds to the flavor. Use a cup of sweet milk if cream is not to be had and thicken the sauce with one teaspoonful of flour, mixed with water, and boil a few minutes. Scalloped Salmon Put half a pint of milk on to boil. Rub an ounce of butter and a tablespoonful of flour together, and stir in the boiling milk. Cut two pounds of fresh or canned salmon into dice. Put a layer of the sauce in the bottom of a baking^dish, then a layer of the salmon; sprinkle with salt, cayenne, chopped parsley, or celery, and grated bread crumbs ; then another layer of the sauce, salmon and seasoning, until the dish is full ; have the last layer sauce ; sprinkle with the bread crumbs and bits of butter. Set in a very hot oven for ten minutes to brown. Serve in the dish in which it is cooked. Baked Salmon, Trout, Bass, Etc. Clean the fish, dip into a pan of boiling water and scrape it until white. Rub well with salt and pepper. Put it in a baking-pan, and pour milk over it till half an inch deep. Bake a four-pound fish about an hour. Cook slowly at first, basting often with the milk, and add more milk if it all cooks away before the fish has browned. When the flesh will separate easily from the bone the fish is done.