Plaice—may be considerably improved by being beaten with a flat piece of wood or a rolling-pin, which has the effect of making the fish eat more firmly. It also removes, in a great measure, the flabby and watery appearance this fish possesses.
Red Mullets—are usually dressed without being either scaled or gutted; if fresh, it improves them to extract the intestines carefully, throwing away the garbage, and replacing the liver; but this can only be done when very fresh, and the liver firm. This process should never be attempted after the fish has been more than six hours out of the water.
Skates, Thornbacks, and all fishes of this kind should be skinned, a process which will be greatly facilitated by previously scalding the fish in hot water.
Salt-fish—requires great attention in its preparation for dressing, and in being properly soaked in water. It is from neglect of these requisites that salt-fish is not so highly esteemed as an article of food as it deserves to be.
How often do we see a piece of cod or ling as hard as a stone, and as salt as the very brine, from having been carelessly thrown only half-an-hour previous to boiling into water, perhaps hardly sufficient to cover it, and from thence transferred to the pot. It is then vigorously boiled until the cook thinks it is sufficiently done to send to table. Cooked in this barbarous fashion, the best salt fish would not be worth the eating.
Ling—when being prepared for table, should soak, fully immersed, at least twelve hours in water, and then be taken out and well scrubbed with a hard brush, or rubbed with a coarse cloth. It should next be placed either on a flat stone or board to drain for six or eight hours. An experienced cook would then place it in lukewarm water, and let it remain soaking for from ten to twelve hours longer, when it will have become pliant and tender, and also swell considerably. Warm water and milk will considerably improve both the flavour and appearance of the fish; a little vinegar may also be added as an additional means of extracting the salt. The fish requires, however, two soakings, the first water being a kind of pickle, which becomes in time as salt as the brine from which the fish was taken.
Dried Cod—requires only half as much soaking each time as salt ling; unless, indeed, the fish be a very large one, in which case it will require to be soaked nearly as long as a ling. When the fish is placed in water over night, to be ready early in the morning, throw one or two wine-glassfuls of vinegar into the water; take out the fish the first thing in the morning, and hang it up by its tail to drain.
In English cookery there is little or no variety in the preparation of fish for the table. Three or four modes only of dressing this delicacy are known among us—frying, boiling, stewing, grilling, &c., and the numerous preparations of fish by which the palate is delighted and the health maintained in other countries, are not to be seen among the refinements of English dinners, when these latter are confined to dishes of home manufacture. By some strange prejudice, fish is never eaten among us except at the very beginning of dinner, following the soup. Its appearance at a second course would be considered an anomaly in England; and yet no set of persons in the world will, very truly says the “Magazine of Domestic Economy,” relish fish at a second course, on the Continent, more than those Englishmen who have left their prejudices behind them in their native country.
In fish, England has always enjoyed an admitted pre-eminence over the nations of the Continent. The fish brought to her markets is fresher, finer, and in greater variety, yet the uniformity of her cookery in this respect is alternately to foreigners the theme of wonder and ridicule. Billingsgate, adjoining the Custom House, is the mart whence this vast metropolis is supplied. The fishmongers exhibit their stores on trays of marble or of lead. Every tide brings up fleets of vessels varying in size, the Berwick smack, the Dutch galliot, the Norway fishing-boats and the well-appointed steamer. There are smacks laden with salmon packed in ice; Dutch schuyts with their wells filled with luxurious turbots, or delicious eels; boats and barges almost sinking with their plentiful cargoes of cod, haddock, skate, soles, herrings, or mackerel, according to the season; oysters, crabs, lobsters, crawfish, &c., &c. Hither the Brighton mackerel and soles, at the commencement of the season, are forwarded by land and rail carriage, and occasionally those welcome guests at the tables of the great and opulent, the john-dory, and the mullet, both gray and scarlet. The traffic is under proper regulations. Oysters, muscles, cockles, sprats, and other fish that are sold by measure, are subject to the inspection of the city-meters. Around Billingsgate and in its vicinity are numerous dealers in salt and dried fish, such as salmon, cod, ling, and herrings. In the spring and summer seasons the supply from Newcastle of that great delicacy, pickled salmon, is very considerable, and great quantities daily arrive fresh from Ireland and Scotland by steam and rail. The money expended annually in the purchase of fish landed at this place, is of enormous amount: it has been said that the Dutch used to take yearly from our current coin, fifty thousand guineas for turbot only! The principal market-day at Billingsgate is Monday.
Dr. M’Culloch asserts that a small proportion of sugar will keep fish perfectly fresh for several days; but the fish must be fresh when it is applied, as it will not recover from taint. Sugar also cures salmon and white fish, which keeps any length of time in a dried state, provided it is not allowed to get damp. A little salt may be added to the sugar to please the taste.