The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory Part 14

_Haddock baked._

Let the inside of the gills be drawn out and washed clean; fill with bread crumbs, parsley, sweet herbs chopped, nutmeg, salt, pepper, a bit of b.u.t.ter, and grated lemon-peel; skewer the tail into the mouth, and rub it well with yolk of egg. Strew over bread crumbs, and stick on bits of b.u.t.ter. Bake the fish in a common oven, putting into the dish a little white wine and water, a bit of mace, and lemon-peel. Serve up with oyster sauce, white fish sauce, or anchovy sauce; but put to the sauce what gravy is in the dish, first skimming it.

_Haddock Pudding._

Skin the fish; take out all the bones, and cut it in thin slices. b.u.t.ter the mould well, and throw round it the sp.a.w.n of a lobster, before it is boiled. Put alternate slices of haddock and lobster in the mould, and season to your taste. Beat up half a pint of cream or more, according to the size of the mould, with three eggs, and pour on it: tie a cloth over, and boil it an hour. Stew oysters to go in the dish. Garnish with pastry.

_Herring._

The following is a Swedish dish: Take salted herring, some cold veal, an apple, and an onion, mince them all fine, and mix them well together with oil and vinegar.

_Lampreys, to pot._

Well cleanse your lampreys in the following manner: the intestines and the pipe which nature has given them instead of a bone must be taken clear away, by opening them down the belly from head to tail. They must then be rubbed with wood-ashes, to remove the slime. Then rub with salt, and wash them in three or four waters. Let them be quite free from water before you proceed to season them thus:--take, according to the quant.i.ty you intend to pot, allspice ground with an equal quant.i.ty of black pepper, a little mace, cayenne pepper, salt, about the same quant.i.ty as that of all the other seasoning; mix these well together, and rub your lampreys inside and out. Put them into an earthen pan or a well-tinned copper stewpan, with some good b.u.t.ter under and over, sufficient to cover them, when dissolved. Put in with them a few bay-leaves and the peel of a lemon. Let them bake slowly till they are quite done; then strain off the b.u.t.ter, and let them lie on the back of a sieve till nearly cold. Then place them in pots of suitable size, taking great care to rub the seasoning well over them as you lay them in; because the seasoning is apt to get from the fish when you drain them. Carefully separate the b.u.t.ter which you have strained from the gravy; clarify it, and, when almost cold, pour it into your pots so as to cover your fish completely. If you have not sufficient b.u.t.ter for this purpose you must clarify more, as the fish must be entirely hid from sight. They are fit for use the next day.

Great care must be taken to put them into the pots quite free from the gravy or moisture which they produce.

_Another way._

Skin your fish, cleanse them with salt, and wipe them dry. Beat some black pepper, mace, and cloves; mix them with salt, and season your fish with it. Put them in a pan; cover with clarified b.u.t.ter; bake them an hour and season them well; remove the b.u.t.ter after they are baked; take them out of their gravy, and lay them on a coa.r.s.e cloth to drain. When quite cold, season them again with the same seasoning. Lay them close in the pot; cover them completely with clarified b.u.t.ter; and if your b.u.t.ter is good, they will keep a long time.

_Lobsters, to b.u.t.ter._

Put by the tails whole, to be laid in the middle of the dish; cut the meat into large pieces; put in a large piece of b.u.t.ter, and two spoonfuls of Rhenish wine; squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and serve it up.

_Lobster Frica.s.see._

Cut the meat of a lobster into dice; put it in a stewpan with a little veal gravy; let it stew for ten minutes. A little before you send it to table beat up the yolk of an egg in cream: put it to your lobster, stirring it till it simmers. Pepper and salt to your taste. Dish it up very hot, and garnish with lemon.

_Lobsters, to hash._

Take the meat out of a boiled lobster as whole as you can. Break all the sh.e.l.ls; to these and the remains of the body, the large claws excepted, as they have no goodness in them, put some water, cayenne pepper, salt, and common pepper. Let them stew together till the liquor has a good flavour of the lobster, but observe that there must be very little water, and add two teaspoonfuls of anchovy pickle. Strain through a common sieve; put the meat of the lobster to the gravy; add some good rich melted b.u.t.ter, and send to table. Lobster sauce is made in the same way, only the meat should be cut smaller than for hashing. Hen lobsters are best.

_Lobsters, to pot._

Boil four moderate-sized lobsters, take off the tails, and split them.

Take out the flesh as whole as possible; pick the meat out of the body and chine; beat it fine, and season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace, and season separately, in the same manner, the tails and claws, which must also be taken out as whole as you can. Clarify a pound of the very finest b.u.t.ter; skim it clean; put in the tails and claws, with what you have beaten, and let it boil a very short time, stirring it all the while lest it should turn. Let it drain through a sieve, but not too much; put it down close in a pot, and, when it is a little cooled, pour over the b.u.t.ter which you drained from it. When quite cold, tie it down.

The b.u.t.ter should be the very best, as it mixes with the lobster sp.a.w.n, &c., and is excellent to eat with the rest or spread upon bread.

_Lobsters, to stew._

Half boil two fine lobsters; break the claws and take out the meat as whole as you can; cut the tails in two, and take out the meat; put them in a stewpan, with half a pint of gravy, a gill of white wine, a little beaten mace, cayenne pepper, salt, a spoonful of ketchup, a little anchovy liquor, and a little b.u.t.ter rolled in flour. Cover and stew them gently for twenty minutes. Shake the pan round frequently to prevent the contents from sticking; squeeze in a little lemon. Cut the chines in four; pepper, salt, and broil them. Put the meat and sauce in a dish, and the chines round for garnish.

_Lobster Curry Powder._

Eleven ounces of coriander seed, six drachms of cayenne pepper, one ounce of c.u.mmin, one ounce and a half of black pepper, one ounce and a half of turmeric, three drachms of cloves, two drachms of cardamoms.

_Lobster Pates._

Rub two ounces of b.u.t.ter well into half a pound of flour; add one yolk of an egg and a little water, and make it into a stiff paste. Sheet your pate moulds very thin, fill them with crumbs of bread, and bake lightly.

Turn out the crumbs and save them. Cut your lobster small; add to it a little white sauce, and season with pepper and salt. Take care that it is not too thin. Fill your moulds; cover with the crumbs which you saved, and a quarter of an hour before dinner put them into the oven to give them a light colour.

Oyster pates are done the same way.

_Lobster Salad._

Boil a cauliflower, pull it in pieces, and put it in a dish with a little pepper, salt, and vinegar. Have four or five hard-boiled eggs, boiled beet-root, small salad, and some anchovies, nicely cleaned and cut in lengths. Put a layer of small salad at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of the cauliflower, then the eggs cut in slices, then the beet, and so on. Take the claws and tail of the lobster, cut as whole as possible, and trim, to be laid on the top. The tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and what you can get out may be put in at the time you are laying the cauliflower, &c. in the dish. Make a rich salad sauce with a little elder vinegar in it, and pour it over. Lay the tails and claws on the top, and cross the shreds of the anchovies over them.

_Mackarel a la maitre d'hotel._

Boil the fish, and then put it in a stewpan, with a piece of b.u.t.ter and sweet herbs. Set it on the fire till the b.u.t.ter becomes oil.

_Mackarel, to boil._

Boil them in salt and water with a little vinegar. Fennel sauce is good to eat with them, and also coddled gooseberries.

_Mackarel, to broil._

You may split them or broil them whole; pepper and salt them well. For sauce, scald some mint and fennel, chop them small; then melt some b.u.t.ter and put your herbs in. You may scald some gooseberries and lay over your mackarel.

_Mackarel, to collar._

Collar them as eels, only omit the sage, and add sweet herbs, a little lemon-peel, and seasoning to your taste.

_Mackarel, to fry._

For frying you may stuff the fish with crumbs of bread, parsley well chopped, lemon-peel grated, pepper and salt, mixed with yolk of egg.

Serve up with anchovy or fennel sauce.

_Mackarel, to pickle._