Part 6

Cut four pounds of fresh cod or sea-bass into pieces two inches square, and lay enough of these on the pork to cover it. Follow with a layer of chopped onions, a little parsley, summer savory and pepper, either black or cayenne. Then a layer of split Boston, or butter, or whole cream crackers, which have been soaked in warm water until moistened through, but not ready to break. Above this put a layer of pork and repeat the order given above--onions, seasoning (not too much), crackers and pork, until your materials are exhausted. Let the topmost layer be buttered crackers well soaked. Pour in enough cold water to barely cover all. Cover the pot, stew gently for an hour, watching that the water does not sink too low. Should it leave the upper layer exposed, replenish cautiously from the boiling tea-kettle. When the chowder is thoroughly done, take out with a perforated skimmer and put into a tureen. Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of flour and about the same quantity of butter; boil up and pour over the chowder. Serve sliced lemon, pickles and stewed tomatoes with it, that the guests may add if they like.

CODFISH BALLS.

Take a pint bowl of codfish picked very fine, two pint bowls of whole raw peeled potatoes, sliced thickly; put them together in plenty of cold water and boil until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked; remove from the fire and drain off all the water. Mash them with the potato masher, add a piece of butter the size of an egg, one well-beaten egg, and three spoonfuls of cream or rich milk. Flour your hands and make into balls or cakes. Put an ounce each of butter and lard into a frying pan; when hot, put in the balls and fry a nice brown. Do not freshen the fish before boiling with the potatoes. Many cooks fry them in a quantity of lard similar to boiled doughnuts.

STEWED CODFISH. (Salt.)

Take a thick, white piece of salt codfish, lay it in cold water for a few minutes to soften it a little, enough to render it more easily to be picked up. Shred it in very small bits, put it over the fire in a stew pan with cold water; let it come to a boil, turn off this water carefully, and add a pint of milk to the fish, or more according to quantity. Set it over the fire again and let it boil slowly about three minutes, now add a good-sized piece of butter, a shake of pepper and a thickening of a tablespoonful of flour in enough cold milk to make a cream. Stew five minutes longer, and just before serving stir in two well-beaten eggs. The eggs are an addition that could be dispensed with, however, as it is very good without them. An excellent breakfast dish.

CODFISH A LA MODE.

Pick up a teacupful of salt codfish very fine and freshen--the desiccated is nice to use; two cups mashed potatoes, one pint cream or milk, two well-beaten eggs, half a cup butter, salt and pepper; mix; bake in an earthen baking dish from twenty to twenty-five minutes; serve in the same dish, placed on a small platter, covered with a fine napkin.

BOILED FRESH COD.

Sew up the piece of fish in thin cloth, fitted to shape; boil in salted water (boiling from the first), allowing about fifteen minutes to the pound. Carefully unwrap and pour over it warm oyster sauce. A whole one boiled the same.

_Hotel Brighton._

SCALLOPED FISH.

Pick any cold fresh fish, or salt codfish, left from the dinner, into fine bits, carefully removing all the bones.

Take a pint of milk in a suitable dish and place it in a saucepan of boiling water; put into it a few slices of onion cut very fine, a sprig of parsley minced fine, add a piece of butter as large as an egg, a pinch of salt, a sprinkle of white pepper, then stir in two tablespoonfuls of cornstarch, or flour, rubbed in a little cold milk; let all boil up and remove from the fire. Take a dish you wish to serve it in, butter the sides and bottom. Put first a layer of the minced fish, then a layer of the cream, then sprinkle over that some cracker or bread crumbs, then a layer of fish again, and so on until the dish is full; spread cracker or bread crumbs last on the top to prevent the milk from scorching.

This is a very good way to use up cold fish, making a nice breakfast dish, or a side dish for dinner.

FISH FRITTERS.

Take a piece of salt codfish, pick it up very fine, put it into a saucepan, with plenty of _cold_ water; bring it to a boil, turn off the water, and add another of cold water; let this boil with the fish about fifteen minutes, very slowly; strain off this water, making the fish quite dry, and set aside to cool. In the meantime, stir up a batter of a pint of milk, four eggs, a pinch of salt, one large teaspoonful of baking powder in flour, enough to make thicker than batter cakes. Stir in the fish and fry like any fritters. Very fine accompaniment to a good breakfast.

BOILED SALT CODFISH. (New England Style.)

Cut the fish into square pieces, cover with cold water, set on the back part of the stove; when hot, pour off water and cover again with cold water; let it stand about four hours and simmer, not boil; put the fish on a platter, then cover with a drawn-butter gravy and serve. Many cooks prefer soaking the fish over night.

BOILED CODFISH AND OYSTER SAUCE.

Lay the fish in cold, salted water half an hour before it is time to cook it, then roll it in a clean cloth dredged with flour; sew up the edges in such a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but _one_ thickness of cloth over any part. Put the fish into boiling water slightly salted; add a few whole cloves and peppers and a bit of lemon peel; pull gently on the fins, and when they come out easily the fish is done. Arrange neatly on a folded napkin, garnish and serve with oyster sauce. Take six oysters to every pound of fish and scald (blanch) them in a half-pint of hot oyster liquor; take out the oysters and add to the liquor, salt, pepper, a bit of mace and an ounce of butter; whip into it a gill of milk containing half of a teaspoonful of flour. Simmer a moment; add the oysters, and send to table in a sauce boat. Egg sauce is good with this fish.

BAKED CODFISH.

If salt fish, soak, boil and pick the fish, the same as for fish-balls. Add an equal quantity of mashed potatoes, or cold, boiled, chopped potatoes, a large piece of butter, and warm milk enough to make it quite soft. Put it into a buttered dish, rub butter over the top, shake over a little sifted flour, and bake about thirty minutes, and until a rich brown. Make a sauce of drawn butter, with two hard-boiled eggs sliced, served in a gravy boat.

CODFISH STEAK. (New England Style.)

Select a medium-sized fresh codfish, cut it in steaks crosswise of the fish, about an inch and a half thick; sprinkle a little salt over them, and let them stand two hours. Cut into dice a pound of salt fat pork, fry out all the fat from them and remove the crisp bits of pork; put the codfish steaks in a pan of corn meal, dredge them with it, and when the pork fat is smoking hot, fry the steaks in it to a dark brown color on both sides. Squeeze over them a little lemon juice, add a dash of freshly ground pepper, and serve with hot, old-fashioned, well-buttered Johnny Cake.

SALMON CROQUETTES.

One pound of cooked salmon (about one and a half pints when chopped), one cup of cream, two tablespoonfuls of butter, one tablespoonful of flour, three eggs, one pint of crumbs, pepper and salt; chop the salmon fine, mix the flour and butter together, let the cream come to a boil, and stir in the flour and butter, salmon and seasoning; boil one minute; stir in one well-beaten egg, and remove from the fire; when cold make into croquettes; dip in beaten egg, roll in crumbs and fry. Canned salmon can be used.

SHELL-FISH

STEWED WATER TURTLES, OR TERRAPINS.

Select the largest, thickest and fattest, the females being the best; they should be alive when brought from market. Wash and put them alive into boiling water, add a little salt, and boil them until thoroughly done, or from ten to fifteen minutes, after which take off the shell, extract the meat, and remove carefully the sand-bag and gall; also all the entrails; they are unfit to eat, and are no longer used in cooking terrapins for the best tables. Cut the meat into pieces, and put it into a stewpan with its eggs, and sufficient fresh butter to stew it well. Let it stew till quite hot throughout, keeping the pan carefully covered, that none of the flavor may escape, but shake it over the fire while stewing. In another pan make a sauce of beaten yolk of egg, highly flavored with Madeira or sherry, and powdered nutmeg and mace, a gill of currant jelly, a pinch of cayenne pepper, and salt to taste, enriched with a large lump of fresh butter. Stir this sauce well over the fire, and when it has almost come to a boil take it off. Send the terrapins to the table hot in a covered dish, and the sauce separately in a sauce tureen, to be used by those who like it, and omitted by those who prefer the genuine flavor of the terrapins when simply stewed with butter. This is now the usual mode of dressing terrapins in Maryland, Virginia, and many other parts of the South, and will be found superior to any other. If there are no eggs in the terrapin, "egg balls" may be substituted. (See recipe.)

STEWED TERRAPIN, WITH CREAM.

Place in a saucepan, two heaping tablespoonfuls of butter and one of dry flour; stir it over the fire until it bubbles; then gradually stir in a pint of cream, a teaspoonful of salt, a quarter of a teaspoonful of white pepper, the same of grated nutmeg, and a very small pinch of cayenne. Next, put in a pint of terrapin meat and stir all until it is scalding hot. Move the saucepan to the back part of the stove or range, where the contents will keep hot but not boil; then stir in four well-beaten yolks of eggs; do not allow the terrapin to boil after adding the eggs, but pour it immediately into a tureen containing a gill of good Madeira and a tablespoonful of lemon juice. Serve hot.

STEWED TERRAPIN.

Plunge the terrapins alive into boiling water, and let them remain until the sides and lower shell begin to crack--this will take less than an hour; then remove them and let them get cold; take off the shell and outer skin, being careful to save all the blood possible in opening them. If there are eggs in them put them aside in a dish; take all the inside out, and be very careful not to break the gall, which must be immediately removed or it will make the rest bitter. It lies within the liver. Then cut up the liver and all the rest of the terrapin into small pieces, adding the blood and juice that have flowed out in cutting up; add half a pint of water; sprinkle a little flour over them as you place them in the stewpan; let them stew slowly ten minutes, adding salt, black and cayenne pepper, and a very small blade of mace; then add a gill of the best brandy and half a pint of the very best sherry wine; let it simmer over a slow fire very gently. About ten minutes or so, before you are ready to dish them, add half a pint of rich cream, and half a pound of sweet butter, with flour, to prevent boiling; two or three minutes before taking them off the fire peel the eggs carefully and throw them in whole. If there should be no eggs use the yolks of hens' eggs, hard boiled. This recipe is for four terrapins.

_Rennert's Hotel, Baltimore._

[Illustration: BASTING THE TURKEY.]

OILED LOBSTER.

Put a handful of salt into a large kettle or pot of boiling water. When the water boils very hard put in the lobster, having first brushed it and tied the claws together with a bit of twine. Keep it boiling from twenty minutes to half an hour, in proportion to its size. If boiled too long the meat will be hard and stringy. When it is done take it out, lay it on its claws to drain, and then wipe it dry.

It is scarcely necessary to mention that the head of a lobster and what are called the lady fingers are not to be eaten.

Very large lobsters are not the best, the meat being coarse and tough. The male is best for boiling; the flesh is firmer and the shell a brighter red. It may readily be distinguished from the female; the tail is narrower, and the two uppermost fins within the tail are stiff and hard. Those of the hen lobster are not so, and the tail is broader.

Hen lobsters are preferred for sauce or salad, on account of their coral. The head and small claws are never used.

They should be alive and freshly caught when put into the boiling kettle. After being cooked and cooled, split open the body and tail and crack the claws, to extract the meat. The sand pouch found near the throat should be removed. Care should be exercised that none of the feathery, tough, gill-like particles found under the body shell get mixed with the meat, as they are indigestible and have caused much trouble. They are supposed to be the cause of so-called poisoning from eating lobster.

Serve on a platter. Lettuce and other concomitants of a salad should also be placed on the table or platter.

SCALLOPED LOBSTER.

Butter a deep dish and cover the bottom with fine bread crumbs; put on this a layer of chopped lobster, with pepper and salt; so on, alternately, until the dish is filled, having crumbs on top. Put on bits of butter, moisten with milk and bake about twenty minutes.

DEVILED LOBSTER.

Take out all the meat from a boiled lobster, reserving the coral; season highly with mustard, cayenne, salt and some kind of table sauce; stew until well mixed and put it in a covered saucepan, with just enough hot water to keep from burning; rub the coral smooth, moistening with vinegar until it is thin enough to pour easily, then stir it into the saucepan. The dressing should be prepared before the meat is put on the fire, and which ought to boil but once before the coral is put in; stir in a heaping teaspoonful of butter, and when it boils again it is done and should be taken up at once, as too much cooking toughens the meat.

LOBSTER CROQUETTES.

Take any of the lobster remaining from table and pound it until the dark, light meat and coral are well mixed; put with it not quite as much fine bread crumbs; season with pepper, salt and a very little cayenne pepper; add a little melted butter, about two tablespoonfuls if the bread is rather dry; form into egg-shaped or round balls; roll them in egg, then in fine crumbs, and fry in boiling lard.

LOBSTER PATTIES.

Cut some boiled lobster in small pieces; then take the small claws and the spawn, put them in a suitable dish, and jam them to a paste with a potato masher. Now add to them a ladleful of gravy or broth, with a few bread crumbs; set it over the fire and boil; strain it through a strainer, or sieve, to the thickness of a cream, and put half of it to your lobsters, and save the other half to sauce them with after they are baked. Put to the lobster the bigness of an egg of butter, a little pepper and salt; squeeze in a lemon, and warm these over the fire enough to melt the butter, set it to cool, and sheet your patty pan or a plate or dish with good puff paste, then put in your lobster, and cover it with a paste; bake it within three-quarters of an hour before you want it; when it is baked, cut up your cover, and warm up the other half of your sauce above mentioned, with a little butter, to the thickness of cream, and pour it over your patty, with a little squeezed lemon; cut your cover in two, and lay it on the top, two inches distant, so that what is under may be seen. You may bake crawfish, shrimps or prawns the same way; and they are all proper for plates or little dishes for a second course.

LOBSTER Á LA NEWBURG.

Take one whole lobster, cut up in pieces about as large as a hickory nut. Put in the same pan with a piece of butter size of a walnut, season with salt and pepper to taste, and thicken with heavy cream sauce; add the yolk of one egg and two oz. of sherry wine.

Cream sauce for above is made as follows: 1 oz. butter, melted in saucepan; 2 oz. flour, mixed with butter, thin down to proper consistency with boiling cream.

_Rector's Oyster House, Chicago._

BAKED CRABS.

Mix with the contents of a can of crabs, bread crumbs or pounded crackers. Pepper and salt the whole to taste; mince some cold ham; have the baking pan well buttered, place therein first a layer of the crab meat, prepared as above, then a layer of the minced ham, and so on, alternately until the pan is filled. Cover the top with bread crumbs and bits of butter, and bake.

DEVILED CRABS.

Half a dozen fresh crabs, boiled and minced, two ounces of butter, one small teaspoonful of mustard powder; cayenne pepper and salt to taste. Put the meat into a bowl and mix carefully with it an equal quantity of fine bread crumbs. Work the butter to a light cream, mix the mustard well with it, then stir in very carefully, a handful at a time, the mixed crabs, a tablespoonful of cream and crumbs. Season to taste with cayenne pepper and salt; fill the crab shells with the mixture, sprinkle bread crumbs over the tops, put three small pieces of butter upon the top of each, and brown them quickly in a hot oven. They will puff in baking and will be found very nice. Half the quantity can be made. A crab shell will hold the meat of two crabs.

CRAB CROQUETTES.

Pick the meat of boiled crabs and chop it fine. Season to taste with pepper, salt and melted butter. Moisten it well with rich milk or cream, then stiffen it slightly with bread or cracker crumbs. Add two or three well-beaten eggs to bind the mixture. Form the croquettes, egg and bread, crumb them and fry them delicately in boiling lard. It is better to use a wire frying basket for croquettes of all kinds.

TO MAKE A CRAB PIE.

Procure the crabs alive, and put them in boiling water, along with some salt. Boil them for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, according to the size. When cold pick the meat from the claws and body. Chop all together, and mix it with crumbs of bread, pepper and salt, and a little butter. Put all this into the shell and brown in a hot oven. A crab shell will hold the meat of two crabs.

CRABS. (Soft Shell.)

Crabs may be boiled as lobsters. They make a fine dish when stewed. Take out the meat from the shell, put it into a saucepan with butter, pepper, salt, a pinch of mace and a very little water; dredge with flour and let simmer five minutes over a slow fire. Serve hot; garnish the dish with the claws laid around it.

The usual way of cooking them is frying them in plenty of butter and lard mixed; prepare them the same as frying fish. The spongy substance from the sides should be taken off, also the sand bag. Fry a nice brown and garnish with parsley.

OYSTERS.

Oysters must be fresh and fat to be good. They are in season from September to May.

The small ones, such as are sold by the quart, are good for pies, fritters, or stews; the largest of this sort are nice for frying or pickling for family use.

FRIED OYSTERS.

Take large oysers from their own liquor into a thickly folded napkin to dry them; then make hot an ounce each of butter and lard in a thick-bottomed frying pan. Season the oysters with pepper and salt, then dip each one into egg and cracker crumbs rolled fine, until it will take up no more. Place them in the hot grease and fry them a delicate brown, turning them on both sides by sliding a broad-bladed knife under them. Serve them crisp and hot.

_Boston Oyster House._

Some prefer to roll oysters in corn meal and others use flour, but they are much more crisp with egg and cracker crumbs.

OYSTERS FRIED IN BATTER.

_Ingredients._--One-half pint of oysters, two eggs, one-half pint of milk, sufficient flour to make the batter; pepper and salt to taste; when liked, a little nutmeg; hot lard.

Scald the oysters in their own liquor, beard them, and lay them on a cloth to drain thoroughly. Break the eggs into a basin, mix the flour with them, add the milk gradually, with nutmeg and seasoning, and put the oysters in a batter. Make some lard hot in a deep frying pan; put in the oysters one at a time; when done, take them up with a sharp pointed skewer and dish them on a napkin. Fried oysters are frequently used for garnishing boiled fish, and then a few bread crumbs should be added to the flour.

STEWED OYSTERS. (In Milk or Cream.)

Drain the liquor from two quarts of oysters; mix with it a small teacupful of hot water, add a little salt and pepper and set it over the fire in a saucepan. Let it boil up once, put in the oysters, let them come to a boil, and when they "ruffle" add two tablespoonfuls of butter. The instant it is melted and well stirred in, put in a pint of boiling milk and take the saucepan from the fire. Serve with oyster or cream crackers. Serve while hot.

If thickening is preferred, stir in a little flour or two tablespoonfuls of cracker crumbs.

PLAIN OYSTER STEW.

Same as milk or cream stew, using only oyster liquor and water instead of milk or cream, adding more butter after taking up.

OYSTER SOUP.

For oyster soup, see SOUPS.

DRY OYSTER STEW.

Take six to twelve large oysters and cook them in half a pint of their own liquor; season with butter and white pepper; cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. Serve in hot soup plates or bowls.

_Fulton Market, New York._

BOSTON FRY.