[ To fry Mullets.]
Scale, draw, and scotch them, wash them clean, wipe them dry and flour them, fry them in clarified butter, and being fried, put them in a dish, put to them some claret wine, slic’t ginger, grated nutmeg, an anchove, salt, and some sweet butter beat up thick, give the fish a warm with a minced lemon, and dish it, but first rub the dish with a clove of garlick.
The least Mullets are the best to fry.
[ To bake a Mullet or Bace.]
Scale, garbidge, wash and dry the Mullet very well, then lard it with a salt eel, season it, and make a pudding for it with grated bread, sweet herbs, and some fresh eel minced, put also the yolks of hard eggs, an anchove wash’d & minc’d very small, some nutmeg, & salt, fill the belly or not fill it at all, but cut it into quarters or three of a side, and season them with nutmeg, ginger, and pepper, lay them in your pie, and make balls and lay them upon the pieces of Mullet, then put on some capers, prawns, or cockles, yolks of eggs minced, butter, large mace, and barberries, close it up, and being bak’d cut up the lid, and stick it full of cuts of paste, lozenges, or other pretty garnish, fill it up with beaten butter, and garnish it with slic’t lemon.
Or you may bake it in a patty pan with better paste than that which is made for pyes.
This is a very good way for tench or bream.