ROASTED SALMON.—Take a large piece of fine fresh salmon, cut from the middle of the fish, well cleaned and carefully scaled. Wipe it dry in a clean coarse cloth. Then dredge it with flour, put it on the spit, and place it before a clear bright fire. Baste it with fresh butter, and roast it well; seeing that it is thoroughly done to the bone. Serve it up plain; garnishing the dish with slices of lemon, as many persons like a little lemon-juice with salmon. This mode of cooking salmon will be found excellent. A small one or a salmon-trout may be roasted whole.
BAKED SALMON.—A small salmon may be baked whole. Stuff it with forcemeat made of bread-crumbs; chopped oysters, or minced lobster; butter; cayenne; a little salt, and powdered mace,—all mixed well, and moistened with beaten yolk of egg. Bend the salmon round, and put the tail into the mouth, fastening it with a skewer. Put it into a large deep dish; lay bits of butter on it at small intervals; and set it into the oven. While baking, look at it occasionally, and baste it with the butter. When one side is well browned, turn it carefully in the dish, and add more butter. Bake it till the other side is well browned. Then transfer it to another dish with the gravy that is about it, and send it to table.
If you bake salmon in slices, reserve the forcemeat for the outside. Dip each slice first in beaten yolk of egg, and then in the forcemeat, till it is well coated. If in one large piece, cover it in the same manner thickly with the seasoning.
The usual sauce for baked salmon is melted butter, flavoured with the juice of a lemon, and a glass of port wine, stirred in just before the butter is taken from the fire. Serve it up in a sauce-boat.
BOILED TURBOT OR SHEEP’S-HEAD FISH.—Having cleaned and washed the fish, soak it an hour or two in salt and water to draw off the slime. Then let it lie half an hour or more in cold water. Afterwards drain, and wipe it dry. Score the back deeply with a knife. The whiteness of the fish will be much improved by rubbing it over with a cut lemon. The fish-kettle must be large, and nicely clean. Lay the fish with its back downward, on the strainer of the kettle. Cover it well with cold water, (milk and water in equal portions will be better still,) and add a small table-spoonful of salt. Do not let it come to a boil too fast, and skim it carefully. When the scum has ceased to rise, diminish the heat under the kettle, and let it simmer for about half an hour or more; not allowing it to boil hard. When the fish is done, take it up carefully with a fish-slice; and having prepared the sauce, pour it over the fish and send it to table hot.
For the sauce mix together very smoothly, with a broad bladed knife, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, two tea-spoonfuls of flour. Put them into a clean sauce-pan, and hold it over the fire, and stir them till melted. Then add a large salt-spoonful of powdered mace, and as much cayenne as will lie on a sixpence. It will be much improved by the addition of some boiled lobster, chopped small. When the sauce has simmered two or three minutes, add very gradually, half a pint of rich cream, and let it come almost to a boil, stirring all the time. After the fish is taken up, pour the sauce over it hot. Or you may send it to table in a sauce-boat. In this case ornament the fish with the coral of the lobster put on in a handsome figure.
Another way of dressing this fish is, after it has been boiled to set it on ice to get cold; and then, having carefully removed the bones, cut the flesh into small squares, put it into a stew-pan, and having mixed the above sauce, add it to the fish, and let it stew slowly in the sauce; but do not let it come to a boil. When thoroughly hot, take it up, and send it to table in a deep dish.