Oysters and Fish

by Thomas J. Murrey

Curry of Frogs’ Legs.—This is an excellent dish. Wash one pound of frogs’ legs in cold water; brown one-fourth of an onion in oil or butter; add a teaspoonful of curry and a pint of hot water; pour this in a saucepan, and add the frogs; simmer an hour and a half, and drain. Mix a teaspoonful each of rice-flour and curry to a paste, with the broth; add salt to taste, and half a pint of milk. Place on the range, and when hot add the frogs. Blanch two dozen sweet almonds; rub off the skins, split them, and toss them about in hot butter; season with pepper and salt; when done squeeze a little lemon-juice over them, and send to table on separate dish with the curry.

Broiled Weakfish.—When freshly caught, this is an excellent fish and well flavored; but it loses its flavor when kept on ice more than a day, and the flesh becomes soft and spongy. In color the weakfish is of a bluish-gray, with faint speckled back and sides, belly white, the fins yellow. It is in season from May to October, and is best-flavored in the latest two months of that time. Select a medium-sized fish for broiling; see that the flesh is firm, the eyes bright, and the gills a bright red, and free from a soft, flabby appearance. Place the well-cleaned whole fish on the table or fish-board, back towards you; make an incision close to the head, down to the bone; hold the head firmly with the left hand, and cut the fish in two lengthwise, keeping the knife close to the bone the whole length of the fish; remove the bone. (The bone and head may be boiled a few hours, seasoned, and the broth used in fast-day soups.) Cut each piece of fish in two, crosswise; rub on a little sweet oil or melted butter; broil the outer side first, then the inner side, and serve with this side upwards on the hot dish; pour over the fish well-made drawn butter (which see).

Baked Whitefish, Bordeaux Sauce.—Clean and stuff the fish. Put it in a baking-pan, and add a liberal quantity of butter, previously rolled in flour, to the fish. Put in the pan half a pint of claret, and bake for an hour. Remove the fish, and strain the gravy; add to the latter a gill more of claret, a teaspoonful of brown flour, and a pinch of cayenne, and serve with the fish.

Halibut, Egg Sauce.—Select a three-pound piece of white halibut, cover it with a cloth, and place it in a steamer; set the steamer over a pot of fast boiling water, and steam two hours; place it on a hot dish, surrounded with a border of parsley; and serve with egg-sauce, which is made as follows:—

Egg Sauce.—Cream an ounce of butter; add to it one tablespoonful of dry flour, a saltspoonful of salt, and half a saltspoonful of white pepper (black pepper spoils its color). Stir it briskly, and add half a pint of hot water. Divide an ounce of butter into little balls, roll them in flour, and add them one at a time; stir constantly, and care should be exercised not to allow the sauce to brown or discolor. Chop three cold hard-boiled eggs, and add them to the sauce; let it heat thoroughly, and serve in a boat.

Fried Butterfish.—These flat, slate-colored little fish are excellent when quite fresh; and as they are easily cleaned, they are recommended to house-keepers. Fry them in tried-out salt-pork fat, which gives them a very nice flavor.

Broiled Shad.—The secret of having the fish juicy, and at the same time properly cooked, is to rub a little olive-oil over it before broiling, and broil it over a fire free from smoke or flame. Charcoal affords the best fire. The sulphurous fumes of hard coal injure the flavor of the fish. When done, have ready a little sweet butter melted and mixed with salt, white pepper (black pepper spoils the looks of the fish), half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley to two ounces of butter, and the juice of half a lemon. Place the fish on a hot dish, pour the hot sauce over it, and serve with hot plates.

Baked Shad.—Broiling is, next to planking, the best way of cooking this excellent fish; but a baked shad is not to be despised. Prepare it as follows:—

Make a stuffing of soaked bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt; place it lengthwise in a pan; roll walnuts of butter in flour, and put four to six of them on top of the fish; fill the space around the fish with inch slices of raw potato, and bake forty minutes. When done, serve potatoes and fish together.

Shad Roe à la Poulette.—Cover a pair of roes with water slightly salted; add a tablespoonful of vinegar and a slice of lemon; simmer twenty minutes, and drain; put into a saucepan an ounce of butter; when it begins to melt, whisk it, and add the juice of half a lemon.