How to Cook Fish

by Myrtle Reed

COLD BOILED FISH

Clean and skin a large fish and put on a piece of buttered paper in the bottom of a fish-pan. Add a sliced onion, two beans of garlic, and enough salted water to cover. Simmer until done. Take it up and squeeze over it the juice of a lemon. Boil two eggs hard, chop the whites fine and sift the yolks. Cut cold boiled beets in fancy shapes. Put a row of the chopped whites of eggs down the middle of the fish, on each side of that a row of the yolks, and next to the yolks a row of the beets. Pour over a French dressing, garnish with lettuce leaves, and serve.

FISH À LA BRUNSWICK

Cook any large fish in salted water, adding one cupful of vinegar, and sliced onions, celery root, and parsley to season. For the sauce mix the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs with the yolks of two raw eggs, add a teaspoonful of prepared mustard, and a little salt, pepper, vinegar, lemon-juice, chopped parsley, onion, capers, shallots, and chopped pickle. Mix to a smooth paste with oil, add the finely chopped whites of the eggs, spread over the drained fish, and serve.

FISH AUX BOUILLABAISSE

Heat a tablespoonful of sweet oil, cut a small piece of onion into bits, and let brown in the oil, add a cupful of strained tomatoes, a tiny bit of garlic, a bay-leaf, a little thyme, a lemon-peel, a dash of tabasco, a little tomato catsup, salt, pepper, parsley, and white wine; let this boil for half an hour, then add the fish and boil for twenty minutes. Serve on buttered toast with the sauce poured over. Garnish with parsley.

BOUILLABAISSE—I

Cut into pieces and remove the bones from three pounds of fish, add six shrimps or one lobster or two crabs, cooked, and cut into large pieces, add one-half pint of olive-oil; fry lightly, and add one lemon and two tomatoes, one onion, and one carrot, all sliced, one pinch of saffron,—as much as lies on a ten cent piece,—a bay-leaf, and some parsley. A bean of garlic is used, unless the casserole is rubbed with it before cooking. Stir for ten minutes, add one cupful of stock and one wineglassful of white wine or cider. Cook for fifteen minutes longer, pour out into a bowl, place slices of toast in the casserole, and cover with the fish and vegetables, allowing the sauce sufficient time to soak into the toast, and adding salt and pepper to taste.

BOUILLABAISSE—II

Put into a saucepan about four pounds of different varieties of fish, including one lobster. The fish should be cleaned and cut into small square pieces; the lobster should be cut in sections, leaving the shell on. Add a bunch of parsley, three sliced tomatoes, one large whole clove of garlic, chopped fine, three bay-leaves, half a dozen cloves, one teaspoonful of saffron, three sliced onions, one cupful of olive-oil, salt and pepper to season, and enough water to cover. Bring to the boil, and simmer for thirty minutes. Line a soup tureen with thin slices of toasted bread, pour the contents of the sauce over it, and serve in soup plates, with both forks and spoons. This is a genuine French recipe.