Sew the fish up neatly in a thin cloth and cook in boiling water, fifteen minutes to the pound. Unwrap, lay upon a hot dish, and pour over it the following sauce:
Put a cupful of boiling water into a saucepan, and stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up in a heaping teaspoonful of flour. Beat in, when thick, the whipped yolk of an egg, the juice of a lemon, and twenty-four capers. Stir up well, cook half a minute, and take from the fire.
Scalloped Chicken.
Clean, wash, and cut an old fowl to pieces. Put into a pot with four quarts of cold water and cook very slowly until tender. Take it out, salt and pepper the broth, and put by for to-morrow’s soup, reserving one cupful for your gravy.
Let the chicken cool, and cut—cleanly—into pieces an inch long by one fourth that width. Put the gravy, well-seasoned, over the fire, thicken with a tablespoonful of butter, cut up and rolled in flour; stir in the chicken, and just before it boils, take from the fire, and beat in two whisked eggs, with a little finely minced parsley. Strew the bottom of a bake-dish with crumbs; pour in the chicken; cover with a deeper coating of bread-crumbs; stick bits of butter over this, and bake, covered, until bubbling hot; then brown delicately.
Mashed Potatoes—Browned.
Mash soft with milk and butter, season, and round into a heap upon a greased pie-dish. Brown in a quick oven; glaze with butter; slip carefully to a hot dish.
Split Pea Pancakes.
Soak a pint of split peas all night. Put on, in the morning, in cold water and cook soft. Rub through a fine colander. While hot, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and season with pepper and salt. When quite cold, beat in two eggs, a cupful of milk, and half a cupful of flour in which has been sifted—twice—a quarter teaspoonful of soda and twice as much cream-of-tartar. Beat hard and long, and fry as you would griddle-cakes.