Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

Cut the stalks of a bunch of asparagus into half-inch lengths, and boil slowly for an hour in three cups of salted water. When the stalks are tender, drain through a colander, pressing and rubbing the asparagus that all the juice may exude. Return the liquid to the fire and keep it hot while you cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour, and pour upon them a quart of milk. Stir until smooth, and add the asparagus liquor slowly with a cupful of asparagus tips, already boiled tender. Have ready beaten the yolks of two eggs, pour the hot soup gradually upon these, stirring all the time; return to the fire for just a half minute, season to taste and serve.

Cream of pea soup

Open a can of peas, turn off the liquor and pour over them enough cold water to cover them. At the end of half an hour drain the peas, put them into a saucepan with a pint of water and boil until they are reduced to a pulp. Rub through a colander and add a teaspoonful of granulated sugar. Thicken a pint of rich milk with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter, and stir the pea purée into this. Cook for a minute, season to taste, and turn into a heated tureen. Have ready a handful of dice of fried bread to throw upon the surface of the soup just before it is sent to the table.

Tapioca cream soup

Soak two tablespoonfuls of tapioca in a gill of cold water for six or eight hours. Heat a pint of well-seasoned mutton stock to boiling and stir the tapioca into this. Boil until the tapioca is clear, then slowly add a pint of scalding milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Season to taste, and pour the soup very gradually upon the beaten yolks of three eggs. Turn into a heated tureen and serve.

Cream cheese soup

Boil an onion for fifteen minutes in a pint of veal stock, then strain it out and return the stock to the fire. Heat a pint of milk to scalding, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of flour rubbed into one of butter, season with white pepper and celery salt, and add to the veal stock. Stir in slowly the beaten yolks of two eggs, then four tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese and serve.

Cream of lettuce soup

Make as you would cream of spinach soup, but boil ten minutes only. It is very good and more delicate than spinach.

Cream of sago soup

Soak half a cupful of sago for three hours in enough tepid water to cover it. Pour a cupful of boiling water upon it, and simmer in an inner boiler until very soft. Now add three cupfuls of hot milk, into which two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour have been stirred. Beat up well, put in celery salt, pepper and a little onion juice; stir up and beat from the bottom for two minutes; pour gradually upon two beaten eggs; set in boiling water for two minutes, and pour out.

VEGETABLE SOUPS WITH MEAT

Potato purée

Peel and slice a quart of good “old” potatoes. Put them into the soup kettle with a large sliced onion, three stalks of celery cut into inch pieces, a quarter of a pound of butter, and pepper and salt to taste; stew slowly until reduced to a pulp, add a quart of good stock; simmer a few minutes longer, run through a colander into another saucepan and let it boil gently for five minutes. Just before ready to serve add a pint of hot cream, a piece of butter and a tablespoonful of minced parsley.

Bean soup

Soak three cupfuls of dried white beans for eight hours. Drain, cover them with two quarts of boiling water, and boil until the beans are tender and broken to pieces. Rub them and the water in which they have been boiled through a sieve and return to the fire. Add a quart of stock, in which a ham or a piece of corn beef has been boiled. If this is too salt, add other soup stock with it. Boil for an hour, season to taste; stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of flour and put into the tureen. Put a handful of croutons or dice of fried bread on the surface of the soup.

Mock-turtle bean soup

Make as you would white bean soup, adding, at the last, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in one of _browned_ flour, and when it has boiled one minute, a glass of sherry.

Have in the tureen three tablespoonfuls of hard-boiled egg, cut into dice, and a lemon, peeled and sliced as thin as paper. It is a surprisingly good imitation of mock turtle soup.

Bean and tomato soup

Soak a quart of beans for eight hours. Drain and soak an hour longer in warm water. Drain and put into a soup pot with a gallon of cold water, and bring slowly to a boil. Add a half pound of fat salt pork, chopped, two sliced onions and a bay leaf. Let all simmer gently for four hours. At the end of that time run and press the soup through a sieve, and return it to the pot with a quart of canned tomatoes seasoned, and sweetened with two teaspoonfuls of granulated sugar. Boil for half an hour, strain the soup through a colander and return to the fire, while you thicken it with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter. Boil up once and serve.

Split pea soup

This soup may be made of dried split green or yellow peas. Soak a large cupful of the peas all night, drain, cover with two quarts of water and bring to a boil. Simmer gently until the peas are soft, then rub through a colander and return to the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter and season with pepper, celery, salt and onion juice. Stir until very smooth, turn into a heated tureen, throw in a handful of dice of fried bread and serve.

Celery soup

Wash the celery, cut it into inch lengths and boil it in enough water to cover it until so soft that it can be rubbed through a colander. After passing it through the colander, return to the fire with a pint of white stock. Scald a pint of milk, stir into it a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when thick and smooth, add slowly the stock seasoned with white pepper and celery salt. Beat for a half-minute and serve.

Green pea purée (No. 1)

Shell two quarts of peas and leave in cold water. Wash the pods and put them over the fire to boil in a quart of veal or mutton stock. Boil for twenty minutes, then drain out the pods and return the stock to the fire. Drain the water from the peas, and when the stock boils again, turn them into this. Add a pinch of soda and boil until the green pellets are reduced to a soft mass. Rub the pulp and liquid through a colander, return to the fire and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Have heated in another saucepan a half pint of rich milk. Pour this slowly into a bowl containing a beaten egg; whip all together, and gradually add the peas-purée. Do not return the soup to the fire after it has been poured upon the milk and egg, or it may curdle.

Green pea purée (No. 2)

Boil a quart of shelled peas tender in salted hot water with a young onion, a few sprigs of parsley and six mint leaves. Rub through a colander and return to the fire, adding half a cupful of good stock, salt, pepper and a lump of sugar. When it has boiled two minutes stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, cook one minute longer and pour upon croutons of fried bread-dice in the tureen.

Savory potato soup

Crack a good marrow-bone well and put over the fire with three pints of cold water, a small sliced carrot, a stalk or two of celery and a grated onion. Cook slowly until boiled down to one-half the original quantity. Set aside until cold; remove the fat, take out the bones, and rub the vegetables through a colander back into the soup. Heat quickly to a boil, and pour upon your mashed potato, gradually, working in smoothly as you go on. Turn into a double boiler and when again hot put in a great spoonful of chopped parsley. Have ready in another saucepan a good cupful of hot water, in which has been dropped a pinch of soda. Stir into this a teaspoonful of butter, rubbed up in one of corn-starch. Cook three minutes, add to the potato soup, stir briskly for half a minute and put into the tureen. If properly seasoned this is a delicious family broth.

Browned potato soup

Peel and cut into quarters twelve potatoes, put three tablespoonfuls of beef dripping in a soup pot and fry in it the potatoes and a sliced onion. When brown, add two quarts of water and simmer until the potatoes are soft and broken. Rub through a colander, return the purée to the pot, thicken with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour rubbed to a paste with a great spoonful of butter, stir until smooth, add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste and serve.

It is very good.

Savory rice soup

Boil half a cupful of well-washed rice in boiling water for twelve minutes; drain off the water, pour over it one quart of stock and cook until the rice is tender; then rub through a strainer and return to the fire; beat the yolks of two eggs, add to them half a cup of cream, and this to the soup and stir for one minute; do not allow it to boil; add more seasoning if necessary, and serve.

Okra soup

Into a quart of chicken stock stir two slices of corned ham, minced, a chopped onion and two dozen okra. Add a pint of strained tomatoes and boil all until the okra is tender. Season to taste and serve.

Red tomato soup

Skim all grease from a quart of beef stock and turn into it a can of tomatoes, or a quart of fresh tomatoes, peeled and sliced. Bring to a boil and simmer steadily for an hour. At the end of this time rub the soup through a sieve and return to the fire with a heaping teaspoonful of sugar, a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, a teaspoonful of onion juice, the same quantity of kitchen bouquet, and pepper and salt to taste. Add a half-cupful of boiled rice, simmer five minutes and serve with squares of toasted bread.

Tomato and bean soup

Put beef-bones over the fire with half a sliced carrot, two stalks of refuse celery and a grated onion. Pour in three pints of cold water; simmer slowly in a covered pot four hours, until the liquid is reduced to one-half. Turn bones and soup into a bowl and let all get perfectly cold. Skim off the fat, strain out the bones and rub the vegetables through a colander back into the liquor. Season this to your taste with salt and pepper, bring to a boil, add a cupful of stewed tomato and one of baked beans and cook half an hour longer before rubbing all hard through the colander into another saucepan. Stir in a teaspoonful of butter rubbed up with one of flour, to prevent wateriness in the soup, also a little chopped parsley. Boil up sharply for one minute and turn upon tiny squares of fried or toasted bread laid in the bottom of the tureen.

This is an excellent way of using up left-overs of stewed tomatoes and baked beans.

Carrot soup

Wash and clean one dozen half-grown carrots. Slice thin, then place them in a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little salt and sugar and cook slowly, turning often until the carrots begin to color. Add a pint of rich broth and allow them to boil gently to a glaze; then put the carrots through your vegetable press; return to the saucepan, simmer until smoking-hot and serve.

Sorrel soup

Chop the sorrel into bits and boil tender in a quart of mutton stock. Rub through a colander and return to the fire. Thicken a pint of hot milk with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Cook one minute, or until it is smooth and free from lumps, when stir in slowly the sorrel soup. Season to taste and serve. The French are particularly fond of sorrel soups.

Succotash soup

Remove the strings from string beans, cut the beans into inch lengths and shred each inch into thin strips. Grate the kernels from six ears of corn, and boil the cobs for twenty minutes in a quart of cleared beef stock. Remove the cobs and boil the grated corn and shredded beans in the stock for twenty-five minutes. Now make a pint of tomato sauce, thickening it and seasoning it as usual, and pour the stock, corn and beans gradually upon this. Season all to taste, and serve very hot, without straining.

You may make this soup in winter from canned corn and string beans.

Spinach soup

Pick over, wash and stem half a peck of spinach, and put over the fire in the inner vessel of a double boiler, with boiling water in the outer, and cook tender. Rub through your vegetable press back into the saucepan; add a pint of good stock; season with salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of sugar and a pinch of mace; bring to a quick boil to keep the color, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in a teaspoonful of flour, and cook one minute.

Celery soup

Is good made in the same way, also cauliflower.

Lettuce soup

Treat as directed in spinach soup. Cook very quickly and add a dash of lemon juice.

Farmer’s chowder

Parboil and slice six fine potatoes; fry half a pound of sweet salt pork (chopped) and when it begins to crisp add a minced onion and cook to a light brown. Pack potatoes, pork and onion in a soup kettle, sprinkling each layer with pepper and minced parsley. Add the hot fat; cover with a pint of boiling water and simmer thirty minutes. Turn into a colander and drain the liquor back into the kettle. Have ready a pint of hot milk into which has been stirred a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour; add to the liquor, cook one minute, return the potatoes to the kettle and serve.

VEGETABLE SOUPS WITHOUT MEAT

Split pea soup

Soak a large cup of split peas all night, then put them over the fire with two quarts of water and bring to a boil. Simmer gently until the peas are soft. Rub through a colander, return to the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into two of butter and season with pepper, celery salt and onion juice. Stir to a smooth purée, pour into the tureen and throw a handful of dice of fried bread upon the surface of the soup.

Green pea broth (No. 1)

Drain the liquor from a can of peas, cook them until very soft, then rub through a colander. Thicken a quart of milk with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into two of butter, stir the mashed peas into this, boil up once, stirring steadily; season with salt and a teaspoonful of sugar, and serve.

Green pea broth (No. 2)

Drain a can of peas and lay the peas in cold water for one hour. Add two cupfuls of cold water, one teaspoonful of sugar, and one slice of onion; boil twenty minutes and rub through a vegetable press. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter, add one of flour, mixed with one teaspoonful of salt and one-eighth of a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir into the boiling mixture and add two cupfuls of scalded milk heated with a bit of soda. Strain before serving.

“Linsen,” or lentil soup

Pick over and wash one cupful of lentils, soak three hours, and put them on to cook in one quart of boiling water. Let them cook very slowly until soft, and the water reduced one-half. Rub the pulp through a strainer, add one pint of milk and when boiling thicken with one tablespoonful of flour cooked in a tablespoonful of butter. Season with paprika, salt and a little sugar, and serve with croutons.

A good green pea soup

One quart of shelled peas, two cupfuls of milk, two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, one-half teaspoonful, each, of salt and white sugar, and half as much white pepper, one quart of boiling water.

Wash the pods well when you have shelled the peas and put the pods over the fire in the boiling water; cook fifteen minutes, strain and press the softened pods into the water and return to the fire with the raw peas. Cook until soft, when run through your vegetable press back into the saucepan with the water. Have ready a roux made by heating the butter and stirring into it in the frying-pan the flour. Have the milk hot in another vessel, add the roux, cook two minutes. Season the pea-broth and pour into the tureen. Stir in the thickened milk and serve, pouring upon croutons of fried bread.

Squash soup

One cupful of cold boiled squash, run through a colander, one quart of milk, heated, with a pinch of soda, one teaspoonful, each, of salt and of sugar, a quarter as much pepper and a pinch of mace, two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, one tablespoonful of onion juice and two of minced celery.

Make a roux of butter and flour, and stir into the hot milk. Beat together the squash, celery and seasoning until light; heat quickly in a saucepan, stirring all the time. When very hot, put into the tureen, turn in the milk, stirring all well together, and serve.

Turnip soup

Make as directed in last recipe.

Rice and tomato soup

Peel and cut up a dozen ripe tomatoes and boil to a pulp in a quart of salted water. Strain, return to the fire, and add two tablespoonfuls of butter rubbed to a paste with the same quantity of flour; pepper, salt and sugar to taste, a tablespoonful of minced parsley and a teaspoonful of onion juice. Cook for ten minutes, then stir in a cupful of boiled rice.

Corn and tomato soup

Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan, put into it two fine-cut onions, one bay leaf and six whole black peppers; cook five minutes without browning; add one tablespoonful of flour, stir and cook two minutes; then one can of tomatoes, one tablespoonful of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, one-quarter teaspoonful of white pepper; stir often and cook ten minutes. Next comes one pint of boiling water; cook five minutes, rub the tomatoes through a sieve into a clean saucepan and add one can of corn, put it into the soup and boil fifteen minutes; mix the yolks of two eggs with a half cupful of cream or milk, stir into the soup, and serve at once.

Corn chowder

Cut the kernels from a dozen ears of green corn. Peel and mince two onions and fry them brown in three tablespoonfuls of butter in a deep saucepan. Now put in the corn, four broken pilot biscuits and half a dozen parboiled and sliced potatoes. Season with pepper, salt and a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and cover with a quart of boiling water. Let all cook gently for three-quarters of an hour, then stir in slowly a cupful of boiling milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Turn at once into a heated tureen. A delightful summer soup.

Artichoke soup

Wash, pare and quarter one dozen large Jerusalem artichokes and lay in cold water for an hour. Put over the fire with enough cold water to keep them from burning and cook five minutes after they begin to boil. Drain off the water, put the artichokes into the inner vessel of the double boiler with one quart of milk and a pinch of soda, and cook until tender. Press the pulp through your vegetable press; put it again into the boiler and thicken with one tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, first cooked together to a white roux. Season with salt and cayenne and serve with fried bread dice.

Vermicelli soup

(Contributed)

Bring to a boiling point two quarts of soup stock. Add four ounces of vermicelli and boil hard for twenty minutes. Season with pepper and salt and serve at once.

Macaroni soup

(Contributed)

Cook one ounce of macaroni in boiling water for twenty minutes. Drain and cut into little rings. Bring one quart of stock to the boiling point. Add the macaroni and let simmer five minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Lima bean soup

(Contributed)

Cook the beans in thin soup stock until they fall to pieces. Pass through the purée strainer. Add enough thin cream or rich milk to make the soup the proper consistency. Season to taste, reheat and serve at once.

Noodles for soup

Beat an egg with a pinch of salt, then stir into it gradually enough flour to enable you to knead it to a firm dough. Lay this on the floured pastry board, roll very, very thin, and cut into strips of a half-inch in width. Leave these long strips on the board for a few minutes until so dry that they may be rolled up loosely, as tape is rolled. These can be dried in a colander near the range and kept for soup. They are to be dropped into the boiling soup and cooked for fifteen minutes. You may keep them in a tin box in a dry place for days.

Croutons

Cut stale bread into dice less than half an inch square; fry in hot dripping or butter to a delicate brown; take up with a split spoon and shake free of fat in a colander.

Egg soup

In a double boiler heat a quart of milk into which you have stirred a pinch of soda and a minced onion. Rub to a paste a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour and stir into the milk. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

Lay six poached eggs in the bottom of a tureen and when the white soup is smooth and cream-like, pour it carefully upon the eggs.

FISH SOUPS

Red snapper soup

Heat a quart of white stock to a boil. Stir in two cupfuls of the cold cooked fish, freed of skin and bones, and minced finely. Add pepper, salt, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and a great spoonful of butter. Heat a cupful of milk to boiling, thicken it with a white roux and a half cupful of fine cracker crumbs. When the fish has cooked in the soup for five minutes, stir the liquid into the thickened milk and serve.

Clam chowder

Chop a half-pound of fat salt pork; put a layer of the pork in the bottom of the pot, cover with a layer of clams, sprinkle with a little minced onion and parsley, and put in a layer of split and soaked Boston crackers. Proceed in this way until seventy-five clams are used, then sprinkle with pepper and salt and cover with cold water. Bring slowly to the boil and simmer for an hour. Drain off the liquid and return to the fire. Thicken with a lump of butter rolled in flour, and add a cupful of tomato juice. Return the other ingredients to the pot, bring to the boil, and send to the table.

“Long” clam chowder

Chop a quart of “long,” or soft clams, peel six potatoes and slice thin; mince a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork fine; tie up in a cheese-cloth bag six whole allspice and the same number of whole cloves. Put the minced pork into the pot and fry it crisp; remove the pork and fry a small sliced onion in the pot to a light brown. Now put in the potatoes and a can of tomatoes, the spice bag, a quart of cold water and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Cook for four hours. At the end of three and a half hours add the clams and four pilot biscuits that have been soaked in milk. Serve very hot.

Scallop chowder

Scallops treated as directed in the foregoing recipe make a delicious chowder. Add more cayenne than when clams are used, scallops being the richer fish of the two.

Clam soup

Fifty fine clams, with the liquor that runs from them. One quart of water. One cupful of milk and two well-beaten eggs. Pepper and salt to taste. Pinch of soda in the milk. Two tablespoonfuls of butter.

Put the minced clams, liquor and water in a saucepan; simmer gently (but not boil) about one and a half hours. The clams should be so well-cooked that you seem to have only a thick broth; season with butter, pepper and salt, and pour into a tureen in which a few slices of well-browned toast have been placed. Beat the eggs very light, add slowly the milk, scalding hot, beat hard a minute or so, and when the soup is removed from the fire stir the egg and milk into it.

Oyster soup

Three dozen oysters and one quart of their juice. One quart of milk. Two tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in one of flour. Paprika, or cayenne, and salt to taste. A pinch of mace. Pinch of soda in the milk.

Scald the liquor in one saucepan and the milk in another. Make a roux of butter and flour and add the scalding milk gradually, stirring to a smooth mixture. Now put this with the hot oyster juice; add the oysters and cook until they “ruffle,” not an instant afterward.

Send crackers and sliced lemon around with it.

A fine crab soup

(A Maryland recipe.)

Boil one dozen large crabs; let them get cold, and extract the meat. Meanwhile chop a pound of salt pork and boil half an hour, _fast_. Cool suddenly, take off the grease from it, turn the liquor into a saucepan and heat. Put the crab-meat into this and simmer thirty-five minutes. Have ready a pint of rich, unskimmed milk, scalding hot. Beat the yolks of three eggs light and pour the milk gradually upon them, stirring all the time. Turn into the inner vessel of a double-boiler, and when the boiling point is reached add the crabs and the liquor in which they were cooked.

Remove from the fire, but leave the inner vessel in the boiling water for five minutes after you have added a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley.

Eel soup

Two pounds of eels, cleaned and cut into inch-lengths; two tablespoonfuls of butter cooked to a roux with one of flour; three pints of water, one sliced onion, a pinch of mace and a larger of cayenne; salt to taste; dripping for frying; one tablespoonful of minced parsley. Juice of a lemon.

Heat the dripping hissing hot and fry the sliced onion in it. Now put in the eels when you have wiped them dry, and fry on both sides to a light brown. Turn all into a covered saucepan, pour in the cold water and cook slowly for an hour. Season then, stir in the roux; simmer three minutes, put in the lemon juice and serve.

Catfish soup

May be made in the same way.

Chicken broth

Cover a jointed fowl with cold water and boil until tender. Set aside the liquor in which the fowl was boiled until very cold. Remove meat and bones, and skim, removing every particle of fat. Put two quarts of this chicken-stock on the fire, season with salt and a little white pepper, bring to a boil and stir in six tablespoonfuls of rice that has been soaked for an hour in cold water. Add a little onion juice and cook until the rice is soft. Now stir in a tablespoonful of minced parsley and cook for ten minutes longer. Heat a pint of milk into which a pinch of baking soda has been stirred. Cook together a heaping tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when they bubble, pour upon them the pint of heated milk, stirring until you have a smooth white sauce. Into this beat gradually two well-whipped eggs. Stir over the fire for half-a-minute, and pour the egg and milk mixture into a heated tureen. Into this pour slowly, beating steadily, the chicken soup. Season to taste and serve at once.

A “left-over” fish bisque

Rid cold baked or boiled or broiled fish of bones and skin. Pick into fine bits with a silver fork. Get from your fish-merchant for a few cents a pint of oyster liquor. Put over the fire with a generous lump of butter, pepper and salt. Bring to a boil, add the fish, cook one minute and stir in a scant cupful of crumbs soaked in milk. Simmer for three minutes and serve. Pass sliced lemon with it.

FISH

Baked red snapper

A fish that is earning, and honestly, much popularity. It would have all it deserved if it were always cooked properly. It is not a fish with which one can take liberties.

Draw, clean and wipe a five-pound red snapper and wash inside and out with salad oil and lemon. Make a stuffing as follows: One well-beaten egg, one-half cupful of powdered cracker and one cupful of oysters, drained and chopped. Season with one teaspoonful of onion juice, one tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of salt, one-eighth teaspoonful of paprika and one tablespoonful of minced parsley, and moisten with cream and oyster liquor. It should be quite moist. Fill the fish and sew the edges together with fine white cotton.

Put a layer of minced fat pork on the grating of your covered roaster, lay a few slices of tomato and onion on the pork, then the fish on this. Dredge the top with salt and flour, and put on more minced pork. Place it in a hot oven, add a cupful of boiling water, and cover. Baste often, and add more water after each basting. Bake about one hour. Remove to a hot dish and serve with sauce Hollandaise.

Boiled red snapper

Clean, wash, wipe dry and sew up in coarse white mosquito netting. Put it into boiling water deep enough to cover the fish, and which has been salted and flavored with lemon juice. Let the water come to the boiling point, then reduce the heat so it will merely bubble. Simmer about half an hour. Lift carefully from the water, drain and unwrap; put it into a hot dish. Garnish with parsley and serve with tomato sauce or with sauce Hollandaise.

Steamed red snapper

Cover the bottom of your steamer with sliced tomatoes, and on these strew minced onion. Clean, wash and dry the fish; lay upon the prepared bed and steam slowly at least one hour for a fish weighing four pounds. Open the steamer once, and turn the fish very carefully. Serve with oyster sauce or with sauce tartare.

Baked bluefish

Clean, wash and wipe a large bluefish. Lay it in a baking-pan, dash over it a cupful of boiling salted water, and bake, covered, for an hour, basting it often to prevent burning. When tender and brown, transfer the fish to a hot dish, and keep it warm while you set the pan containing the gravy in which it was cooked on the range and thicken it with browned flour, adding to flavor it a pinch of salt, one of pepper, a tablespoonful of catsup and a little good table sauce. Lay slices of lemon about the fish on the platter, and serve the sauce from a gravy-boat.

Broiled bluefish

Clean, wash, wipe and split down the back; dust with salt and pepper and broil over a clear fire. Transfer to a hot dish and cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and very finely-minced parsley, rubbed to a cream. Cover and set over hot water for five minutes before serving.

Pass Parisienne potatoes with it.

Boiled black bass with cream gravy

Put in a pot enough slightly salted water to cover the fish, add a gill of vinegar, an onion, eight whole peppers and a blade of mace. Sew up the fish in a piece of thin cheese-cloth fitted snugly to it. Lay in the water; bring very slowly to the simmering point, and then boil steadily, allowing twelve minutes to each pound of the fish. When done remove the cloth, lay the fish on a platter garnished with sliced lemon, and serve with the cream gravy given below.

Cream gravy for black bass

Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when blended strain slowly upon them a cupful of the water in which the bass was boiled, and stir until smooth and thick. Season to taste with celery salt and white pepper, and stir in a gill of cream to which a pinch of baking-soda has been added. Make very hot, but do not boil, and as soon as hot remove from the fire.

Baked sea bass with shrimp sauce

Clean, wipe and anoint abundantly, inside and out, with a mixture of salad oil and vinegar. Set on ice for an hour to let the “marinade” mellow the fish.

Have ready half a pound of rindless fat pork, cut as thin as shavings. Lay half upon the bottom of your covered bakepan, put the fish upon them, and spread the upper side with the rest. Pour a little hot water in the pan to generate steam; cover and bake one hour, if the fish be large, basting three times with butter and water. Transfer to a hot dish, and set over hot water while you make the sauce.

Shrimp sauce for baked bass

Strain the gravy left in the pan, and stir in a brown roux made by heating a great spoonful of butter in a frying-pan and working in a tablespoonful of browned flour. Add four tablespoonfuls of boiling water to gravy and roux, or enough to bring it to the consistency of cream, then the juice of half a lemon, cayenne or paprika to taste; lastly, half a can of shrimps, chopped fine. Boil one minute, pour some over the fish, the rest into a gravy-boat.

Stuffed sea bass

Clean, wipe and lay for an hour in a marinade of salad oil and vinegar. Fill with a forcemeat of minced salt pork and chopped champignons. Fresh mushrooms are, of course, better, if you can get them. Bake upon shavings of fat salt pork as directed in last recipe. When it has baked forty minutes, cover with fresh tomatoes, peeled and sliced thin, and half a sweet green pepper, minced. Drop bits of butter upon the tomatoes, and bake twenty minutes longer.

Take up the fish and keep hot while you strain the gravy left in the pan, rubbing the tomatoes and pepper through a colander; stir in a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour, add a teaspoonful of sugar and two of onion juice, with hot water if too thick; boil one minute; pour half over the fish, the rest into a sauce-boat.

Muskelonge

The coarse pickerel of the northern rivers and lakes are very nice, cooked as above directed. Bluefish may be treated in the same way.

Baked shad

Wash and wipe a large shad. Make a stuffing of fine breadcrumbs mixed with melted butter, a little minced onion, pepper and salt to taste. Fill the fish with this and sew it up. Lay it in a baking-pan and pour over it a cupful of salted boiling water in which two tablespoonfuls of butter have been melted. Sprinkle the fish with flour and bake in a steady oven. Baste with the drippings every ten minutes. At the end of three-quarters of an hour try the fish with a fork to see if it is done. It should be very tender. Transfer carefully to a hot platter, cut and remove the strings. Keep the fish hot while you make the sauce.

Set on the top of the range the pan in which the fish has been baked. Thicken the fish drippings with two tablespoonfuls of browned flour wet up with cold water. Stir until smooth, then add a cupful of boiling water, the juice of a lemon, a tablespoonful of good table sauce and a teaspoonful of good kitchen bouquet. Unless the sauce is perfectly smooth, strain through a wire sieve. Pour into a heated gravy-boat.

Boiled fresh codfish

Lay the fish in salt and water for an hour before cooking. Choose a “chunky” piece, as nearly square as you can get it. Sew up in white mosquito netting fitted to the shape of the fish. Put on in enough boiling water to cover it, adding four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, and cook steadily ten minutes to the pound. Unwrap the fish and pour over it half of the sauce described below, putting the rest into a gravy-boat.

Egg sauce for boiled codfish

Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and of flour until they bubble, pouring upon them a half pint of milk and stirring until thick and smooth. To this add one hard-boiled egg, chopped fine, one raw egg, beaten light, putting it in slowly, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour over the fish in the dish or serve in a sauce-tureen.

Baked fresh codfish with cheese sauce

Cut a neat square or oblong of codfish, lay in salt and water for half an hour; wipe dry and rub all over with melted butter and lemon juice. In the bottom of your baking-pan under the grating and just _not_ touching the fish, have a cupful of veal stock, or weak gravy, strained. Pepper and salt the fish, cover and bake ten minutes to the pound. Take up then and sift dry, fine crumbs thickly all over it. Put dots of butter on these. Set in the oven, uncovered, to brown while you strain the gravy from the pan, thicken with butter rolled in browned flour, add the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese and a little onion juice. Boil one minute, pour a few spoonfuls carefully upon the crumb-crust of the fish, the rest into a boat.

This is an elegant company dish of fish, and easy of preparation.

Baked fillets of halibut

Cut slices of halibut, weighing a pound each, and an inch thick. Cut each into three strips, two fingers wide, lay in lemon juice and salad oil for an hour; then cook precisely as directed above. When you sift the crumbs over the fillets, cover all sides; then proceed as with the baked cod, taking care to arrange the fillets for browning so that they will not touch one another.

Baked halibut

Lay a piece of halibut weighing about four pounds in cold water (salted) for half an hour, then wipe dry and lay in a covered roaster. Pour over it a cupful of boiling water, in which have been melted two tablespoonfuls of butter. Bake until tender and keep hot on a platter while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour and butter, and season with a teaspoonful, each, of lemon and onion juice, a little celery salt and a wineglassful of claret. Strain, and send to the table in a gravy-boat.

Baked halibut steak (No. 1)

Lay the steak in salted water for fifteen minutes; wipe and put into a baking-pan. Rub the steak with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour over and around it a cupful of milk. Bake, basting every ten minutes until the milk is absorbed. Serve with drawn butter.

Send around fried potatoes with it.

Baked halibut steak (No. 2)

Wash, wipe and lay in marinade of olive oil and lemon juice for one hour. Sprinkle, then, liberally, with minced onion, parsley and lemon juice, turning over and over that the steak may be covered. Now, lay upon the grating of your bakepan. Make a white sauce by stirring one cupful of hot milk into one tablespoonful of butter cooked into a roux with one of flour. Season it with salt and pepper, and pour it over the fish. Cover the surface with fine crumbs moistened in melted butter and bake until the fish is done, about twelve minutes to the pound.

Halibut steak baked with tomatoes

(A Creole recipe.)

Make a rich sauce of tomatoes, fresh or canned, seasoning with butter rolled in flour, sugar, pepper, onion juice and salt, adding, if you have it, a sweet green pepper, seeded and minced. Cook fifteen minutes, strain, rubbing through a colander, and cool. Lay the halibut in oil and lemon juice for an hour, place upon the grating of your covered roaster, pour the sauce over it; cover and bake twelve minutes to the pound if the oven be good. Sift Parmesan cheese over the fish, and cook five minutes longer. Serve upon a hot dish, pouring the sauce over it.

Baked fillets of flounder

Take the backbone out of the fish and cut each half into two neat, long slices. Roll each piece up and pin with a wooden skewer. A new toothpick will do. Lay in salad oil and lemon juice for an hour, setting in the ice to make the fish firm while soaking in the marinade.

Roll in fine dry crumbs, peppered and salted; in beaten egg, and again in crumbs. Cover the grating of your bakepan with thin shavings of salt pork, lay the fillets upon them, sprinkle thickly with finely-minced onion and olives, and bake, covered, twelve minutes for each pound. Lift carefully to a hot dish; withdraw the skewers. Garnish with sliced lemon and send to table.

Fried fillets of flounder

Cut, trim and marinade as for baking. When you take them from the ice, roll as for baking, salt and pepper, roll in crumbs, then in egg, and again in crumbs. Leave on ice for half an hour longer, and fry in deep hot cottolene, salad oil, or other fat. Drain, withdraw the skewers and serve with sauce tartare.

Baked fresh mackerel

Marinade for half an hour in olive oil and lemon juice. Lay thin slices of pork upon the grating of a baking-pan, lay the mackerel on the pork, skim down, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, and bake in a hot oven for twenty-five minutes.

Serve with tomato sauce.

Boiled salmon-trout

Select a small fish for this purpose, as a large one will not fit into the ordinary-sized fish-kettle. Have in your kettle enough salted boiling water to cover the fish, and add two tablespoonfuls of vinegar to the water. Sew the fish up in a piece of firm cheese-cloth, and lay it carefully in the kettle. After it begins to boil, allow twelve minutes to the pound. When done take out of the water carefully, remove the cloth and transfer the fish to a hot platter. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and pour over it a well-seasoned white sauce. Garnish the dish with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley.

Baked salmon

Wipe your fish with a damp cloth, but do not lay it in water. Rub with a little salad oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay in a baking-pan and dash over it a cupful of boiling water in which two tablespoonfuls of butter have been melted. Bake, covered, basting every fifteen minutes. When done transfer to a hot platter and set in the open oven while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with corn-starch wet with cold water, and season it with lemon juice and a dash of onion juice. A little tomato catsup is an improvement. Boil up once and pour into a gravy-boat. Send to the table with the salmon, which may be garnished with sprigs of parsley.

Baked pickerel

Clean and wash the fish. Choose a large fine one for this purpose. Lay it on the grating of your bakepan, dredge with salt and pepper, butter well and dredge with flour. Put into a hot oven, and when the flour begins to brown, baste with butter, water and lemon juice. Cook twelve minutes to the pound, remove, and serve with oyster sauce.

BOILED SALMON

OYSTER PATTIES

BOILED COD

FISH]

Boned baked pickerel

Have your fishmonger take out the backbone when he has split the fish lengthwise, also have him extract every other bone he can get out without tearing the flesh too much. Marinade for an hour in a bath of olive oil and lemon juice. Cover the grating of your bakepan with thin shavings of salt pork, lay the fish upon this, skin-side downward, wash with melted butter, bake, covered, half an hour, baste and cook ten minutes more. Serve with Hollandaise sauce.

Baked salmon-trout with cream gravy

Clean and wash, wipe dry, and go all over it, inside and out, with melted butter and lemon juice. Lay upon the grating of your bakepan, pour in a little boiling water, not quite touching the fish, and bake twelve minutes to the pound, basting twice with butter and twice with the water in the pan below.

Keep hot in heated dish, covered, set over boiling water while you strain the gravy left in the pan, add to it a cupful of hot milk (half cream, if you can get it) scalded with a pinch of soda, thickened with a white roux of butter cooked with flour, and seasoned with paprika, salt and a little minced parsley. Pour over the fish, let it stand three minutes over hot water and serve.

Fried brook trout

Clean with care, roll in peppered and salted flour; set on ice for an hour, and fry immediately in deep fat to a golden-brown. Have a mat of folded and heated tissue paper fringed at the ends, and lay the drained fish upon it. Eat at once.

Broiled soft-shell crabs

Lift the projecting “wings” of the upper shell, and cut or pull off the “feathers” you will find under them. Next trim off the tail, or flap, or “apron,” a round piece of softer shell on the under side of the upper.

Wash quickly and cook without delay lest they die on your hands.

Wash with butter, sprinkle with salt and cayenne pepper, lay within a reversible wire broiler, and cook over clear coals ten minutes, turning twice to broil both sides.

Serve upon thin slices of buttered toast.

Fried soft-shell crabs

Prepare as directed in preceding recipe, sprinkle with cayenne and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs, again in egg, and once more in crumbs and fry in deep, hot fat.

Garnish with water-cress, and pass sliced lemon with them.

Lobster broiled in the shell

Kill the lobster by cutting the tail off with one stroke of the knife, just where it joins the body. With another clean cut divide him lengthwise into two equal parts, shell and all. Take out the coral, the one long intestine and the stomach. Crack the claws with a hammer. Put within a buttered broiler, split side downward, and broil over a fierce fire. As soon as the juice begins to run freely withdraw long enough to wash liberally with melted butter, and return to the fire, turning often to keep in the juices. Cook about ten minutes on the split or flesh side, and eight upon the other.

Have ready a sauce made by rubbing two tablespoonfuls of butter to a cream with lemon juice and finely-minced parsley, adding a little cayenne, and wash the lobster with this while hissing hot. Serve half a lobster to each guest, with oyster forks for extracting the meat.

Pass more sauce for those who wish it.

Lobster baked in shell

Prepare as for broiling, but lay, shell downward, in a bakepan, cover and set in a quick oven, opening in ten minutes to wash with butter. They should be done in twenty minutes, when wash freely with the lemon and butter sauce.

Lobster scalloped in shells

Two cupfuls of lobster meat, cut into small dice. One cupful of white stock, and the same of unskimmed milk. Two tablespoonfuls of butter made into a white roux with one tablespoonful of flour. Salt and paprika to taste. Minced parsley and juice of half a lemon. Beaten yolks of two eggs. Halves of two lobster shells, cleaned. Pinch of soda in milk.

Stir the hot stock and the scalded milk into the roux, season, boil once; remove from the fire, add the eggs and lobster dice and fill the shells. Cover with fine crumbs, rounded, dot with butter, sprinkle with cayenne and bake to a delicate brown.

Lobster á la Newburg

Pick all the meat from the shells of two good-sized freshly-boiled lobsters and cut into one-inch pieces, which place in a saucepan over a hot range, together with two tablespoonfuls of butter, and season with a pinch of salt and one of cayenne. Cook five minutes, pour in a glass of sherry; simmer five minutes, add the beaten yolks of three eggs and a cupful of cream, stirring all the time. When it thickens, pour out and serve.

Do not omit to put a pinch of soda in the cream.

Stewed terrapin

(A Maryland recipe.)

Drop the “diamond-backs” into boiling water and cook until the heads and feet “skin off.” This should be in less than an hour. Let them get perfectly cold. Strip off the shells and extract the heart and entrails carefully, lest an incautious touch rupture the gall-bag and ruin everything. Cut off the head, tail and feet. Cut the meat up small with a sharp knife, put into a saucepan, cover with hot water and simmer fifteen minutes. Rub the yolks of half a dozen hard-boiled eggs to a powder and work in three tablespoonfuls of butter. Heat a cupful of cream in another vessel (with a pinch of soda) and work by degrees into the egg and butter, season with salt and cayenne and mix gradually with the hot terrapin. Cook one minute, add a glass of sherry and pour out.

Fricasseed snapping turtle

Have your fish merchant clean your turtle after he has killed him by throwing him into boiling water. Cut the turtle into neat dice, sprinkle with salt, pepper, onion juice, a dash of kitchen bouquet and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup. Turn into a saucepan, add just enough cold water to cover the meat, fit a top on the vessel and simmer for half an hour. Now add a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed to a paste with a great spoonful of butter; when this is blended with the liquid in the pan, add a glass of sherry and stir in very gradually the beaten yolk of an egg. Bring to the boil and remove from the fire. Turn into a deep heated dish.

A fricassee of crabs

Cut the meat into inch-length pieces, and as evenly as possible. Put into a saucepan a mixture of butter, lemon juice and minced parsley, cayenne and salt. Heat slowly, and when it bubbles stir in the crab meat. Simmer gently for fifteen minutes. Have ready in another vessel a tablespoonful of cream for each crab, heated with a pinch of soda. Thicken with a teaspoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour, and turn upon the yolks of three eggs, or one for every pair of crabs; stir for one minute over the fire, pour into a hot covered dish, stir in the hot crab meat; set in boiling water for three minutes, and serve.

Oyster pâtés

Into a pound of flour chop three-quarters of a pound of cold, firm butter, until you have a coarse yellow powder. Have all your utensils cold. Wet the flour and butter with three gills of iced water and, with a spoon, work into a mass. Turn upon a floured pastry board, roll and fold, then roll again three times, lightly and quickly. Fold and put in the ice-box for several hours. Roll into a sheet half an inch thick, and with a cutter cut into rounds like biscuits. Pile these three deep, and with a small cutter pass half-way through each pile. Put into the oven, which should be very hot, and bake to a light, delicate brown. The pastry should be very light. When done remove from the oven, and lift off the little round in the top of each pâté. This will serve as a cover. With a small spoon scoop out the soft paste from the center, thus leaving a cavity to be filled with the oyster mixture.