Put them into boiling water, and boil them from half to three quarters of an hour, according to their size. Boil half a tea cup of salt with every four pounds of the fish. When cold, crack the shell, and take out the meat, taking care to extract the blue veins, and what is called the lady in the lobster, as they are very unhealthy. If the fish are not eaten cold, warm them up with a little water, vinegar, salt, pepper, and butter. The following way of dressing lobsters looks very prettily. Pick out the spawn and red chord, mash them fine, rub them through a sieve, put in a little butter and salt. Cut the lobsters into squares, and warm it, together with the spawn, over a moderate fire. When hot, take it up, and garnish it with parsely. The chord and spawn are a handsome garnish for any kind of fish.
Are nice boiled, and then fried, or boiled and pickled, in the same manner as oysters. Take them out of the shells—when boiled, pick out the hearts, and throw the rest away, as the heart is the only part that is healthy to eat. Dip the hearts in flour, and fry them in lard till brown. The hearts are good stewed, with a little water, butter, salt, and pepper.
Eels, if very large, are best split open, cut into short pieces, and seasoned with salt and pepper, and broiled several hours after they have been salted. They are good cut into small strips, and laid in a deep dish, with bits of salt pork, seasoned with salt and pepper, and covered with pounded rusked bread, then baked half an hour. Small eels are the best fried.
Trout are good boiled, broiled, or fried—they are also good stewed a few minutes, with bits of salt pork, butter, and a little water. Trout, as well as all other kinds of fresh water fish, are apt to have an earthy taste—to remove it, soak them in salt and water a few minutes, after they are cleaned.
Wash and put them in a pot, with just water enough to prevent the shells burning at the bottom of the pot. Heat them till the shells open—take the clams out of them, and warm them with a little of the clam liquor, a little salt, butter, and pepper. Toast a slice or two of bread, soak it in the clam liquor, lay it in a deep dish, and turn the clams on to it. For clam pancakes, mix flour and milk together to form a thick batter—some cooks use the clam liquor, but it does not make the pancakes as light as the milk. To each pint of the milk, put a couple of eggs, and a few clams—they are good taken out of the shells without stewing, and chopped fine, or stewed, and put into the cakes whole. Very large long clams are good taken out of the shells without stewing, and broiled.