Fish-Balls.
2 cupfuls cold boiled cod—fresh or salted.
1 cupful mashed potato.
½ cup drawn butter, with an egg beaten in.
Season to taste.
Chop the fish when you have freed it of bones and skin. Work in the potato, and moisten with the drawn butter until it is soft enough to mould, and will yet keep in shape. Roll the balls in flour, and fry quickly to a golden-brown in lard, or clean dripping. Take from the fat so soon as they are done; lay in a cullender or sieve and shake gently, to free them from every drop of grease. Turn out for a moment on white paper to absorb any lingering drops, and send up on a hot dish.
A pretty way of serving them is to line the dish with clean, white paper, and edge this with a frill of colored tissue paper—green or pink. This makes ornamental that which is usually considered a homely dish.
Stewed Eels à l’Allemande.
1 cup of boiling water.
1 cup rather weak vinegar.
1 small onion, chopped fine.
A pinch of cayenne pepper.
½ saltspoonful mace.
1 saltspoonful salt.
About 2 pounds of eels.
3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.
Chopped parsley to taste.
Make a liquor in which to boil the eels, of the vinegar, water, onion, pepper, salt and mace. Boil—closely covered—fifteen minutes, when strain and put in the eels, which should be cleaned carefully and cut into pieces less than a finger long. Boil gently nearly an hour. Take them up, drain dry, and put into a sauce made of melted butter and chopped parsley. Set the vessel containing them in another of hot water, and bring eels and sauce to the boiling point, then serve in a deep dish.
Eels Stewed à l’Americain.
3 pounds eels, skinned and cleaned, and all the fat removed from the inside.
1 young onion, chopped fine.
4 table-spoonfuls of butter.
Pepper and salt to taste, with chopped parsley.
Cut the eels in pieces about two inches in length; season, and lay in a saucepan containing the melted butter. Strew the onion and parsley over all, cover the saucepan (or tin pail, if more convenient) closely, and set in a pot of cold water. Bring this gradually to a boil, then cook very gently for an hour and a half, or until the eels are tender. Turn out into a deep dish.
There is no more palatable preparation of eels than this, in the opinion of most of those who have eaten it.