Soyer's standard cookery

Fish on the Plate. Place in a shallow earthenware cooking vessel a little butter, some parsley, shallots and mushrooms, all finely minced, with a little pepper and salt. Upon this place a sole previously cleaned and skinned, and cover it with more butter and seasoning. Add a glass of white wine or a dessertspoonful of brandy and a little good white stock. Place the cover on the cooking vessel and, if practicable, adopt the French method of piling glowing coal on the top of the vessel in order that the fish may be equally heated from all sides. When sufficiently cooked most of the sauce will be absorbed by the fish. In France this dish is often served in the vessel in which it has been cooked; but in any case it should be brought to the table as hot as possible. Economical Mode of Cooking Sturgeon. Take a piece of sturgeon about two pounds in weight and place it beneath a piece of meat which is to be baked on a stand in a dish; with the sturgeon put a little water, salt, pepper, etc., and a little chopped shallot may be used; you can also put potatoes round it. Peas, if in season, are a good accompaniment, with melted butter. To Roast Sturgeon. Take the tail part, skin and bone it; fill the part where the bone comes from with some stuffing, as for a fillet of veal; put butter and paper round it, and tie it up like a fillet of veal; roast, and serve it with melted butter and gravy. They may be cooked precisely as veal, in large or small pieces. Stewed Tench, Put two onions, a carrot, and turnip, cut in slices, into a stewpan, or very small fish-kettle, with a good bouquet of parsley, a few sprigs of thyme, one bay-leaf, six cloves, a blade of mace, a little salt and pepper, and two glasses of sherry; lay your tench over (it will require four for a dish, and they may be either cooked whole, or each one cut into two or three pieces), add a pint of water, cover down close, and stew rather gently over a slow fire for about half an hour; take them out, drain upon a cloth, dress upon a dish without a napkin, and pour a sauce over, made as directed for sauce matelote, cream sauce, or Bey rout. Tench with Anchovy Butter. Cook the tench as in the last, but they may be plain boiled in salt and water; dress upon a dish without a napkin, then put six spoonfuls of melted butter in a stewpan, with one of milk; place it upon the fire, and, when upon the point of boiling, add an ounce of anchovy butter; shake it round over the fire, until the butter is melted, when sauce over and serve. Salmon Trout. In its many preparations salmon-trout may be replaced by salmon, and all recipes relating to the former may be adapted to the latter. As its size is less than the salmon's, it is very rarely cut into slices, being usually served whole. Truite a la Cambaceres. Select a trout; clean it and remove its gills without opening it in the region of the belly. Skin it on one side, starting at a distance of one inch from the head and finishing with two and a half inches from the tail. Place on cut truffles and the red part only of carrots, cut into rods and previously cooked. Spread a napkin, lay the trout, belly under, upon it, and with a sharp knife separate the two fillets from the bones, beginning at the head and proceeding straight down to the tail.