| Bay salt in fine powder | 1½ | lb. |
| Saltpetre | 1 | oz. |
| Chillies, bruised | ½ | oz. |
| Garlic, minced fine | ¼ | oz. |
mix them well, and rub the skin side of the fish all over, using a large handful. Lay your fish flat on a good layer of common salt—rock is far preferable—in your tub, strew bay leaves on it, cover well with your mixture, and put your boards on the fish, weighting them down with accuracy. Remove them once a day for the purpose of applying more of the seasoning, and put fresh bay leaves on the third morning. On the fifth morning take the salmon out of the pickle tub, stretch it open at the back by wooden splints, rinse it quickly through salt and water, and proceed as in the next receipt, in every respect, until the process is completed.
SUPERIOR KIPPERED SALMON.
Choose a short, thick fish with a small head, a bright eye, and of twenty pounds weight, although salmon cannot be too large for splitting, and just fresh from the ice they come packed in. Immediately it is brought home—in hot weather observe—commence your operations. Lay the fish on a table with its back towards you, and, beginning at the nose, draw a sharp knife clean down at one stroke to within two inches of where the tail begins. This must be accomplished so that the backbone is left quite bare under the knife; thus one, the under, side of the fish will be thicker than the upper side. Then take out the roe and liver, which may be beautifully preserved as by various receipts in this treatise, and removing the gills and garbage, wipe out the fish well, and having previously with a pen-knife severed a tissue that runs along the whole length of the bone, and hides much coagulated blood. Pure water must not be allowed, but salt and water may be used to assist in cleaning out the fish—that is, cloths dipped in salt and water. In the next place we must have the backbone detached, to effect which “nicely,” you will need a pen-knife with a strong blade, or one of those used by shoemakers for “paring,” and which are the smallest used by them. Commencing about eight inches from the root of the tail, the knife must be run up by the side of the bone to the head, and then beginning again at the same start, you must pass the knife on the lower side of the bone, and so meeting with the point of the instrument the incision made by the first cutting, thus the bone may be got out, and afterwards the meat so pared down as to appear as though the fish never had a backbone. The necessity for thus taking out the bone is, that handsome slices may be cut from the thick side for broiling. Now, when thus far advanced, make a layer of finely beaten rock salt, or bay salt, at the bottom of your pickling tub, and on that lay the salmon, its scaly side downwards, and with a fine bread-grater cover the whole inside of the fish with finely rendered loaf-sugar, to the thickness of a crown-piece, and put plenty of bay leaves upon that, place your flattening boards nicely on the fish, and weigh them down effectively. These must of course be displaced once a day to supply more sugar to the fish. On the third morning put fresh bay leaves, with a pound more salt, and an ounce and a half of sal prunelle, and replace the boards. Look to it every morning and evening, keeping it well supplied with fine salt and sal prunelle, but using no more sugar. On the fourth day sprinkle lightly over it finely ground white pepper, and renew the leaves. Next day dismiss the boards, bring the thin side over upon the other, and, scattering salt over it, leave it till the next day. Then rinse it quickly through salt and water, and hang it up to drip; wipe it dry, stretch out the sides by pieces of light lath placed across the back, and suspend it in a free current of dry air; examine it occasionally, and if the red side begins to feel clammy or sticky, place it before a fire until the “face” becomes somewhat dry and hardened, then expose it again to the air current, and when ready smoke it with
| Oak sawdust | 2 | parts |
| Beech chips | 2 | parts |
| Fern or grass turfs | 2 | parts |
for three days and nights, adding a little peat to your fire the last twelve hours. It should not be cut for three or four days, and then with a very sharp knife held across the fish in an oblique direction, which procures the slices much broader than if the knife were placed at right angles with the back of the salmon. The slices are usually broiled, enclosed in writing-paper.
COLLARED SALMON.
Take a short, thick fish about twelve pounds weight, scale it, remove the fins, cut off the head with two inches of the jowl, and the tail with six inches of the fish, these to be cured some other way. Lay the fish open at the back, take out the bone, wipe nicely and scatter sifted loaf-sugar over it; after lying six hours replenish the sugar and leave it till the next day. Next draw your knife down the middle, thus making two sides of it, which may by cured in different ways. Get a pint and a half of recently picked shrimps, examine them carefully, and pound them in a mortar with an anchovy, wiped and boned, and so much of this mixture as you think sufficient—viz.
| Cayenne pepper | ½ | oz. |
| Mace, in fine powder | ½ | oz. |
| Cloves „ | 1 | oz. |
| Bay leaves „ | ½ | oz. |
| Table salt | 2 | oz. |
adding a little water that has been boiled. Make a nice smooth paste, and cover the red surface of the fish with it equally; begin at the head part, and roll it up into a nice firm collar, which bind tightly with a broad tape, and sew up in strong calico or light canvas. Let it remain thus two or three days, then plunge it into a pan of boiling water, with saltpetre half an ounce, and salt one pound, to each half-gallon of water; when done enough, take it out, set it on a sieve to cool, and next day put it in your chimney with a slow fire, to dry gradually, and then smoke it with