This is a Virginia receipt, and an admirable one.
Mayonnaise. (Fish.)
Take a pound or so of cold boiled fish (halibut, rock, or cod), cut—not chop—into pieces an inch in length. Mix in a bowl a dressing as follows: the yolks of four boiled eggs rubbed to a smooth paste with salad oil; add to these salt, pepper, mustard, two teaspoonfuls white sugar, and, lastly, six tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Beat the mixture until light, and just before pouring it over the fish, stir in lightly the frothed white of a raw egg. Serve the fish in a glass dish, with half the dressing stirred in with it. Spread the remainder over the top, and lay blanched lettuce-leaves around the edges, to be eaten with it.
Baked Salmon-Trout. ✠
Those who have eaten this prince of game fish in the Adirondacks, within an hour after he has left the lake, will agree with me that he never has such justice done him at any other time as when baked with cream.
Handle the beauty with gentle respect while cleaning, washing, and wiping him, and lay him at full length, still respectfully, in a baking-pan, with just enough water to keep him from scorching. If large, score the back-bone with a sharp knife, taking care not to mar the comeliness of his red-spotted sides. Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. By the time he is done—and he should be so well-looked after that his royal robe hardly shows a seam or rent, and the red spots are still distinctly visible—have ready in a saucepan a cup of cream—diluted with a few spoonfuls of hot water, lest it should clot in heating—in which have been stirred cautiously two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and a little chopped parsley. Heat this in a vessel set within another of boiling water, add the gravy from the dripping-pan, boil up once to thicken, and when the trout is laid—always respectfully—in a hot dish, pour the sauce around him as he lies in state. He will take kindly to the creamy bath, and your guests will take kindly to him. Garnish with a wreath of crimson nasturtium blooms and dainty sprigs of parsley, arranged by your own hands on the edge of the dish, and let no sharply-spiced sauces come near him. They would but mar his native richness—the flavor he brought with him from the lake and wild-wood. Salt him lightly, should he need it, eat and be happy.
If the above savor of bathos rather than “common sense,” my excuse is, I have lately eaten baked salmon-trout with cream-gravy.
Boiled Salmon-Trout. ✠
Clean, wash, and dry the trout; envelop in a thin cloth fitted neatly to the shape of the fish, lay within a fish-kettle, cover with salted water (cold), and boil gently half an hour or longer, according to the size. When done, unwrap and lay in a hot dish. Pour around it cream-sauce made as for baked salmon-trout—only, of course, with the omission of the fish-gravy—and serve.