How to Cook Fish

by Myrtle Reed

BLACK BASS À LA MONTMORENCY

Clean, skin, and bone a bass, and cut into pieces. Butter a baking-dish, put in the fish, season with salt, pepper, and white wine; cover with buttered paper and set in the oven until the fish is partly cooked. Take out the fish and arrange in a baking-pan. Add to the remaining liquor a chopped onion, half a dozen mushrooms, and two sprigs of parsley finely chopped. Add a little stock and thicken with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold water. Pour this sauce over the fish, lay a large mushroom on each piece, cover with crumbs, dot with butter, and bake in the oven. Sprinkle with lemon-juice before serving.

STUFFED SEA-BASS

Clean the fish and cover it with a marinade of olive-oil and vinegar. Soak for an hour. Fill the fish with chopped salt pork and mushrooms, put into a baking-pan with slices of salt pork underneath and on top, and sufficient boiling water. Bake for forty minutes, cover with slices of tomatoes and half of a sweet green pepper chopped fine. Dot with butter and bake for twenty minutes more. Take up the fish and rub the sauce through a colander. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, add one teaspoonful of sugar and two teaspoonfuls of grated onion. Dilute with boiling water if too thick, bring to the boil, pour over the fish, and serve.

BASS À LA BORDELAISE

Split a large sea-bass. Put into a baking-dish with a wineglassful of Claret and salt and pepper to season. Sprinkle with chopped shallot, cover with buttered paper, and cook in a moderate oven for fifteen minutes. Lay the bass on a platter, put the juice in a saucepan with half a teaspoonful of beef extract, four chopped mushrooms, and a bruised bean of garlic. Thicken with flour browned in butter, bring to the boil, pour over the fish, and serve very hot.

BOILED BASS

Clean the fish, put it into warm salted water and simmer for twenty minutes.

BOILED SEA-BASS WITH EGG SAUCE

Boil the fish according to directions previously given. Melt one tablespoonful of butter, add two tablespoonfuls of flour, and cook thoroughly. Add two cupfuls of the water in which the fish was boiled, and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Season with salt, pepper, minced parsley, and lemon-juice; add three hard-boiled eggs coarsely chopped, pour over the fish, and serve.