Virginia Cookery-book

This quantity will suffice for a company of twenty : One pound of butter (to be creamed, not oiled), twelve eggs boiled hard several hours, so that the yolks can be reduced to a powder, a teacupful of thin flour-starch, and, to insure its being free from lumps, it is better to strain it; then stir the butter and starch together. To the yolks of the eggs add four salt-spoonfuls of salt, one of red pepper, two of black pepper, three teaspoonf uls of mixed mustard, with as much catsup as will season the whole, unless you prefer to put the catsup on the table separately, as is better, considering the diversity of tastes ; the eggs, pepper, salt, and mustard should be well mixed before putting with the starch. The sauce should be kept warm until it is wanted, but by no means allowed to become hot enough to oil. Reserve enough eggs and slice some of them to put into the gravy-boat as well as garnish the dish containing the fish. To Boil a Shad. Select a fine, fat specimen (a poor shad being miserable food) — one filled with roe is the choicest. Every wellappointed kitchen should have a regular fish-kettle, such as is supplied with a perforated tin shelf inside, with handles, so that the fish can be lifted from the kettle and laid upon the dish without being broken by handling. If, however, you have not such a convenience, boil your fish in a cloth, laid on an ordinary plate, and, by taking hold of the ends of the cloth, you can manage the fish pretty well, though it be a large one. After cleaning your fish well — that is to say, scraping off the scales, which must be first loosened by having a little hot water poured over them, removing the gills, cutting off the fins and the hard, white part running along the backbone — put it into your kettle in cold water, seasoned with a table-spoonful of salt and a gill of cidervinegar. If the fish is thick through and weighs as much as ten pounds, allow it an hour in which to boil, after the water becomes hot; but if it is thin through and small it will be enough to allow it five minutes for every pound of fish. To test whether it is done thrust a knife as close to the backbone as you can, and if the flesh parts from it readily the fish has boiled long enough, and must be dished without delay. Send it to table in a large, flat dish, wrapped in a folded napkin. Garnish the dish with scraped horseradish. Prepare a nice boat of butter sauce, and have ready Worcestershire Sauce, and catsups of several sorts, and made mustard in the castors, to be used as the taste of different persons may direct. To Bake a Shad. Choose the very finest for this purpose, and, besides the usual cleaning, remove the backbone, if the fish be male, and roe, if it be female ; in the cavities thus formed insert a rich stuffing of bread-crumbs, seasoned exactly as if you were preparing to roast poultry. As at the season for shad eggs are also plentiful, it will improve this stuffing to add to it one or two raw eggs beaten light, and incorporated with the other things. When the fish is well stuffed cover it all over on top with grated bread-crumbs, glazed with some of the egg kept out on purpose ; place it at fall length in a baking -pan containing about a pint of water; baste it with batter from time to time, and let it bake gently till done through. Broil the roe, and serve it in a small dish separately, but placed conveniently, so that each person at table may be helped to a bit. Unless where persons are fond of very rich food, no gravy is needed with baked shad. If called for, though, prepare some out of the juice left in the pan where the fish was baked, adding a little water, and thickening with butter and browned flour. Serve in the usual gravy-boat. To Fry a Shad. Clean the fish as directed above ; split it, and cut into