Dress the carp and take out the milt, put it in a dish with then carp, and take out the gall, then save the blood,
and scotch the carp on the back with your knife; if the carp be eighteen inches, take a quart of claret or white wine, four or five blades of large mace, 10 cloves, two good races of ginger slic’t, two slic’t nutmegs, and a few sweet herbs, as the tops of sweet marjoram, time, savory, and parsley chopped very small, four great onions whole, three or four bay-leaves, and some salt; stew them all together in a stew-pan or clean scowred kettle with the wine, when the pan boils put in the carp with a quarter of a pound of good sweet butter, boil it on a quick fire of charcoal, and being well stew’d down, dish it in a clean large dish, pour the sauce on it with the spices, lay on slic’t lemon and lemon-peel, or barberries, grapes, or gooseberries, and run it over with beaten butter, garnish the dish with dryed manchet grated and searsed, and carved sippets laid round the dish.
In feasts the carps being scal’d, garnish the body with stewed oysters, some fryed in white batter, some in green made with the juyce of spinage: sometimes in place of sippets use fritters of arms, somtimes horse-raddish, and rub the dish with a clove or two of garlick.
For more variety, in the order abovesaid, sometimes dissolve an anchove or two, with some of the broth it was stewed in, and the yolks of two eggs dissolved with some verjuyce, wine, or juyce of orange; sometimes add some capers, and hard eggs chopped, as also sweet herbs, &c.
[ To stew a Carp in the French fashion.]
Take a Carp, split it down the back alive, & put it in boiling liquor, then take a good large dish or stew-pan that will contain the carp; put in as much claret wine as will cover it, and wash off the blood, take out the carp, and put into the wine in the dish three or four slic’t onions, three or four blades of large mace, gross pepper, and
salt; when the stew-pan boils put in the carp and cover it close, being well stewed down, dish it up in a clean scowred dish with fine carved sippets round about it, pour the liquor it was boiled in on it, with the spices, onions, slic’t lemon, and lemon-peel, run it over with beaten butter, and garnish the dish with dryed grated bread.
[ Another most excellent way to stew a Carp.]
Take a carp and scale it, being well cleansed and dried with a clean cloth, then split it and fry it in clarified butter, being finely fryed put it in a deep dish with two or three spoonfuls of claret wine, grated nutmeg, a blade or two of large mace, salt, three or four slices of an orange, and some sweet butter, set it on a chafing dish of coals, cover it close, and stew it up quick, then turn it, and being very well stew’d, dish it on fine carv’d sippets, run it over with the sauce it was stewed in, the spices, beaten butter, and the slices of a fresh orange, and garnish the dish with dry manchet grated and searsed.
In this way you may stew any good fish, as soles, lobsters, prawns, oysters, or cockles.