Put it into boiling hot salt and water, draw it to the side, and let it simmer 15 or 20 minutes, according to its size. Slices less. Oyster sauce.
Salt Cod and Ling.
Soak it, according to the time it has been salted. If hard and dry, two nights, changing the water two or three times. The best Dogger Bank split fish require less. Let there be plenty of water, and the fish a long time in becoming heated through. Then simmer very gently, or it will be tough. Garnish with hard-boiled eggs, in quarters. Serve egg sauce, parsnips, or beet-root.
Cod to Fry.
Cut in thick slices; flour or egg, and cover with bread-crumbs or biscuit powder. Fry in hot dripping or lard.
Cod's Head and Shoulders.
Wash clean, then quickly dash boiling water over it, which will cause the slime to ooze out; this should be carefully removed with a knife, but take care not to break the skin; wipe the head clean, and lay it on a strainer, in a turbot-kettle of boiling water; put in salt and a tea-cupful of vinegar. Take care that it is quite covered. Simmer from thirty to forty minutes. Drain, and put it into a rather deep dish; glaze it with beaten yolk of egg, strew bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, and lemon-peel over, stick in bits of butter, and brown it before the fire; baste with butter, constantly strewing more bread-crumbs and chopped parsley over.—A rich sauce for this is made as follows; have a quart of beef or veal stock; or, if to be maigre, a rich well-seasoned fish stock; thicken with flour rubbed in butter, and strain it; add 50 oysters, picked and bearded, or the hard meat of a boiled lobster cut up, and the soft part pounded, 2 glasses of sherry, and the juice of a lemon. Boil it altogether, five minutes, skim and pour part into the dish where the fish is: the rest serve in a sauce tureen. It may be garnished with fried smelts, flounders, or oysters. The French stuff it with meat or fish forcemeat, with some balls of the same fried, as a garnish.—Cold cod may be dressed as cold turbot. The head may be baked; bits of butter stuck all over it.
Cod Sounds.
Scald, clean, and rub them with salt; take off the outer coat, and parboil, then flour and broil them. Pour over a thickened gravy, which has a tea-spoonful of made mustard, cayenne, and what other seasoning you like.—Or, fried, and served with the same kind of sauce.—Or, dressed in ragout, parboiled, cut in pieces, and stewed in good gravy, or in white sauce. Serve mustard and lemon.
Cabeached Cod.