A devilled crab is considered good, but it should be cooked by a negro expert from Maryland.
Scallops are essentially good in stews, or fried, and when, cut in small pieces, with a pint of milk, a little butter, and a little salt, they again return to their beautiful shells and are baked as a scallop, they are delicious. Put in pork fat, and fried, they are also very fine.
The lobster is now considered very healthful, and as conveying more phosphorus into the human system than any other fish. Broiled, devilled, stewed, cooked in a fashion called Bourdelaise, it is the most delicious of dishes, and as a salad what can equal it?
A baked whitefish with Bordeaux sauce is very fine.
Clean and stuff the fish with bread-crumbs, onions, butter, and sweet marjoram. Put it in a baking pan, add a liberal quantity of butter previously rolled in flour, put in the pan a pint of claret, and bake for an hour. Remove the fish and strain the gravy, put in a teaspoonful of brown flour and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
Halibut with an egg sauce and a border of parsley is a dish for a banquet, only the cook must know how to make egg sauce. Supposing we tell her?
Put two ounces of butter in a stew-pan; when it melts, add one ounce of flour. Stir for one minute or more, but do not brown. Then add by degrees two gills of boiling water, stirring until smooth, and boiling about two minutes. If not perfectly smooth, pass it through a sieve; then add another ounce of butter cut in pieces. When the butter is melted, add three hard-boiled eggs, chopped not too fine, season with pepper and salt, and serve immediately.
This sauce is admirable for cod, and for all boiled fish.
But the "perfectest thing on earth" is a broiled fish, a shad for instance; and one of the best preventives against burning is to rub olive oil on the fish before putting it on the gridiron. Charcoal affords the best fire, and it must be free from all smoke and flame.
A little sweet butter, half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley and the juice of a lemon should be melted together, and stand ready to be poured over the broiled fish.