Rub a little salt down the bone, and over the thick part. Wrap it in a cloth and put it over the fire in cold water; putting it into hot water at first will cause the outside to break before the centre is done. See that it is covered with water, and throw in a table-spoonful of salt. Take off the froth carefully, and boil it half an hour. Fresh cod is eaten with oyster sauce and melted butter, or with the latter alone, prepared as directed under the head of Drawn Butter, with the addition of parsley and if you choose three or four eggs boiled very hard, cut up and put into it.
The head and shoulders of cod are so much thicker than the other part, that it is impossible to boil the fish whole and have all parts equally cooked. It is therefore a good way to buy a large cod, divide it, boil the head and shoulders, and fry the other part, or sprinkle it with salt, and after a day or two, broil it.
Cod Sounds and Tongues.
Soak them in warm water, scrape them thoroughly, and boil them ten minutes in milk and water. To be served with egg sauce.
To Bake a Cod or Black Fish.
The simplest way of baking fish, is very good. Spread little pieces of bread, with butter; pepper and salt them, and lay them inside the fish. Then take a needle and thread and sew it up. Put a small skewer through the lip and tail, and fasten them together with a piece of twine. Lay it into a dish, in which it may be served, put two or three thin slices of salt pork upon it, sprinkle salt over it, and flour it well. Baste it several times with the liquor which cooks out of it. A fish weighing four pounds will cook in an hour.
To make a richer dish.
Chop fine a half a teacupful of fat ham; add a large spoonful of butter, some parsley, thyme, marjoram, a little salt, nutmeg, and pepper. If you have oysters, add a few. Beat two eggs, and put all together with fine bread crumbs enough to compound them. With this, stuff the fish, which should be floured thick, and wind a string around it to keep it together, or else sew it up. Fasten the head and tail together with a skewer. Bake it in a stove an hour. Baste it with butter.
To Fry Cod (or other Fish).