Stuff a fish with the following dressing. Soak some bread in water, squeeze it dry, and add an egg well beaten. Season it with pepper, salt, and a little parsley or thyme; grease the baking-pan (one just the right size for holding the fish) with butter; season the fish on top, and put it into the pan with about two cups of boiling water; baste it well, adding more boiling water when necessary. About twenty minutes before serving, pour over it a cup of sour wine, and a small piece of butter (Mrs. Treat adds also two or three table-spoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce mixed with the wine—of course, this may be left out if more convenient); put half a lemon, sliced, into the gravy; baste the fish again well. When it is thoroughly baked, remove it from the pan; garnish the top with the slices of lemon; finish the sauce in the baking-dish by adding a little butter rubbed to a paste in some flour; strain, skim, and serve it in a sauce-boat.
To Stew Fish, or Fish en Matelote.
Cut the fish transversely into pieces about an inch or an inch and a half long; sprinkle salt on them, and let them remain while you boil two or three onions (sliced) in a very little water; pour off this water when the onions are cooked, and add to them pepper, about a tea-cupful of hot water, and a tea-cupful of wine if it is claret or white wine, and two or three table-spoonfuls if it is sherry or port: now add the fish. When it begins to simmer, throw in some little balls of butter which have been rolled in flour. When the fish is thoroughly cooked, serve it very hot. This is a very good manner of cooking any fresh-water fish.
Fish is much better stewed with some wine. Of course, it is quite possible to stew fish without it, in which case add a little parsley.
To Cook Fish au Gratin.
This is a favorite manner with the French of cooking fish. The fish is served in the same dish in which it is cooked. It is called a gratin dish—generally an oval silver-plated platter, or it may be of block-tin. A fish au gratin is rather expensive, on account of the mushrooms; however, the French canned mushrooms (champignons) are almost as good as fresh ones, and are much cheaper.
Receipt.—First put into a saucepan butter size of an egg, then a handful of shallots, or one large onion minced fine; let it cook ten minutes, when mix in half a cupful of flour; then mince three-fourths of a cupful of mushrooms. Add a tea-cupful of hot water (or better, stock) to the saucepan, then a glass of white or red wine, salt, and pepper. After mixing them well, add the minced mushrooms and a little minced parsley. Skin the fish, cut off the head and tail, split it in two, laying bare the middle bone; slip the knife under the bone, removing it smoothly. Now cut the fish in pieces about an inch long. Moisten the gratin dish with butter, arrange the cuts of fish tastefully on it, pour over the sauce, then sprinkle the whole with bread-crumbs which have been dried and grated. Put little pieces of butter over all, and bake. The dish may be garnished with little diamonds of fried or toasted and buttered bread around the edge. Or,
This is a pretty dish au gratin: Put mashed potatoes (which must be still hot when arranged) in a circle on the outside of the gratin dish, then a row of the pieces of fish (which have been cooked as just described) around the middle of the dish, or just inside the potatoes. Put some mashed potatoes also in the middle of the dish. Garnish here and there with mushrooms. Pour the sauce just described and bread-crumbs over the fish, and bake five or ten minutes.