The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory;

Eels, to roast

Skin your eels; turn, scotch, and wash them with melted butter; skewer them crosswise; fix them on the spit, and put over them a little pepper, salt, parsley, and thyme; roast them quick. Fry some parsley, and lay it round the dish; make your sauce of butter and gravy.

Eels, to spitchcock

Leave the skin on the eels; scour them with salt; wash them; cut off their heads and slit them on the belly side; take out the bone and guts. Wash and wipe them well; cut them in pieces three inches long, and wipe them quite dry. Put two ounces of butter, with a little minced parsley, thyme, sage, pepper and salt, and a little chopped shalot, in a stewpan; when the butter is melted, stir the ingredients together, and take the pan off the fire; mix the yolks of two eggs with them and dip the eels in, a piece at a time; then roll them in bread crumbs, making as much stick on as you can. Rub the gridiron with a bit of suet; set it over a clear fire, and broil your eels of a fine crisp brown; dust them with crisp parsley. Sauce, anchovy and butter, or plain butter in a boat.

Another way

Wash your eels well in their skins with salt and water; dry and slit them; take out the back-bone, and slash them: season them with chopped parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper. Clean the inside with melted butter; cut them into pieces about three inches long and broil them; make the sauce with butter and orange juice.

Eels, to stew

Take five pounds of middling shafflings, cut off their heads, skin, and cut them in pieces as long as your finger. Wash them in several waters; dry them well with a cloth, lay them in a pan, sprinkle over them half an ounce of white salt, and let them lie an hour. Lay them in a stewpan, and add half a pint of French white wine, a quarter of a pint of water, two cloves beaten, a blade of mace, a large onion peeled, and the rind of a lemon; stew all these gently half an hour: then take the eels out of the liquor, skim off all the fat, and flour the eels all over; put to the liquor in which they were stewed an anchovy, washed and boned, and mix sorrel and parsley, half a handful of each, and half a pound of fresh butter. Let it just boil up; put in the eels; when they boil, lay them on sippets in your dish, and send them up hot to table.

Another way

Cover the fish close in a stewpan with a piece of butter as big as a walnut rolled in flour, and let it stew till done enough, which you will know by the eels being very tender. Take them up and lay them on a dish; strain your sauce, and give it a quick boil and pour it over the fish. Garnish with lemon.

Fish, to recover when tainted

When fish of any kind is tainted plunge it in cold milk, which will render it sweet again.

Fish, in general, to dress

Take water, salt, half a pint of vinegar, a sprig of thyme, a small onion, and a little lemon peel; boil them all together, then put in your fish, and when done enough take them out, drain them well, and lay them over a stove to keep hot.

If you fry fish, strew some crumbs of grated bread very fine over them, and fry them in sweet oil; then drain them well and keep them hot.

Fish, to dress in Sauce

Cut off the heads, tails, and fins, of two or three haddocks or other small fish; stew them in a quart of water, with a little spice and anchovy, and a bunch of sweet herbs, for a quarter of an hour; and then skim. Roll a bit of butter in flour, and thicken the liquor; put down the fish, and stew them with a little chopped parsley, and cloves, or onions.

Fish hashed in Paste

Cut the fish into dice about three quarters of an inch square; prepare white sauce the same as for fowls, leaving out the mushrooms and truffles; add a little anchovy sauce to give it a good colour, and a pinch of cayenne pepper and salt. When the sauce is done, throw in the dice of fish, and when thoroughly hot serve it.

There should be a little more butter in the sauce than is commonly used in the white sauce for fowls.

Fish, to Cavietch

Cut the fish into slices, season them with pepper and salt, and let them lie for an hour; dry them well with a cloth, flour and fry them brown in oil: boil a quantity of vinegar proportionate to that of the fish to be prepared: cover the fish with slices of garlic and some whole pepper and mace; add the same quantity of oil as vinegar, mix them well together, and salt to your taste. When the fish and liquor are quite cold, slice onions and lay at the bottom of the pan; then put a layer of fish, and so on, till the whole is in. The liquor must be cold before it is poured on the fish.

Gudgeon

Dress as you would smelts.

Haddocks, to bake

Bone two or three haddocks, and lay them in a deep pan with pepper, salt, butter and flour, and two or three anchovies, and sufficient water to cover them. Cover the pan close for an hour, which is required to bake them, and serve them in the saucepan.

Haddock baked

Let the inside of the gills be drawn out and washed clean; fill with bread crumbs, parsley, sweet herbs chopped, nutmeg, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, and grated lemon-peel; skewer the tail into the mouth, and rub it well with yolk of egg. Strew over bread crumbs, and stick on bits of butter. Bake the fish in a common oven, putting into the dish a little white wine and water, a bit of mace, and lemon-peel. Serve up with oyster sauce, white fish sauce, or anchovy sauce; but put to the sauce what gravy is in the dish, first skimming it.

Haddock Pudding

Skin the fish; take out all the bones, and cut it in thin slices. Butter the mould well, and throw round it the spawn of a lobster, before it is boiled. Put alternate slices of haddock and lobster in the mould, and season to your taste. Beat up half a pint of cream or more, according to the size of the mould, with three eggs, and pour on it: tie a cloth over, and boil it an hour. Stew oysters to go in the dish. Garnish with pastry.

Herring

The following is a Swedish dish: Take salted herring, some cold veal, an apple, and an onion, mince them all fine, and mix them well together with oil and vinegar.

Lampreys, to pot

Well cleanse your lampreys in the following manner: the intestines and the pipe which nature has given them instead of a bone must be taken clear away, by opening them down the belly from head to tail. They must then be rubbed with wood-ashes, to remove the slime. Then rub with salt, and wash them in three or four waters. Let them be quite free from water before you proceed to season them thus: – take, according to the quantity you intend to pot, allspice ground with an equal quantity of black pepper, a little mace, cayenne pepper, salt, about the same quantity as that of all the other seasoning; mix these well together, and rub your lampreys inside and out. Put them into an earthen pan or a well-tinned copper stewpan, with some good butter under and over, sufficient to cover them, when dissolved. Put in with them a few bay-leaves and the peel of a lemon. Let them bake slowly till they are quite done; then strain off the butter, and let them lie on the back of a sieve till nearly cold. Then place them in pots of suitable size, taking great care to rub the seasoning well over them as you lay them in; because the seasoning is apt to get from the fish when you drain them. Carefully separate the butter which you have strained from the gravy; clarify it, and, when almost cold, pour it into your pots so as to cover your fish completely. If you have not sufficient butter for this purpose you must clarify more, as the fish must be entirely hid from sight. They are fit for use the next day.

Great care must be taken to put them into the pots quite free from the gravy or moisture which they produce.

Another way

Skin your fish, cleanse them with salt, and wipe them dry. Beat some black pepper, mace, and cloves; mix them with salt, and season your fish with it. Put them in a pan; cover with clarified butter; bake them an hour and season them well; remove the butter after they are baked; take them out of their gravy, and lay them on a coarse cloth to drain. When quite cold, season them again with the same seasoning. Lay them close in the pot; cover them completely with clarified butter; and if your butter is good, they will keep a long time.

Lobsters, to butter

Put by the tails whole, to be laid in the middle of the dish; cut the meat into large pieces; put in a large piece of butter, and two spoonfuls of Rhenish wine; squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and serve it up.

Lobster Fricassee

Cut the meat of a lobster into dice; put it in a stewpan with a little veal gravy; let it stew for ten minutes. A little before you send it to table beat up the yolk of an egg in cream: put it to your lobster, stirring it till it simmers. Pepper and salt to your taste. Dish it up very hot, and garnish with lemon.

Lobsters, to hash

Take the meat out of a boiled lobster as whole as you can. Break all the shells; to these and the remains of the body, the large claws excepted, as they have no goodness in them, put some water, cayenne pepper, salt, and common pepper. Let them stew together till the liquor has a good flavour of the lobster, but observe that there must be very little water, and add two teaspoonfuls of anchovy pickle. Strain through a common sieve; put the meat of the lobster to the gravy; add some good rich melted butter, and send to table. Lobster sauce is made in the same way, only the meat should be cut smaller than for hashing. Hen lobsters are best.

Lobsters, to pot

Boil four moderate-sized lobsters, take off the tails, and split them. Take out the flesh as whole as possible; pick the meat out of the body and chine; beat it fine, and season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace, and season separately, in the same manner, the tails and claws, which must also be taken out as whole as you can. Clarify a pound of the very finest butter; skim it clean; put in the tails and claws, with what you have beaten, and let it boil a very short time, stirring it all the while lest it should turn. Let it drain through a sieve, but not too much; put it down close in a pot, and, when it is a little cooled, pour over the butter which you drained from it. When quite cold, tie it down. The butter should be the very best, as it mixes with the lobster spawn, &c., and is excellent to eat with the rest or spread upon bread.

Lobsters, to stew

Half boil two fine lobsters; break the claws and take out the meat as whole as you can; cut the tails in two, and take out the meat; put them in a stewpan, with half a pint of gravy, a gill of white wine, a little beaten mace, cayenne pepper, salt, a spoonful of ketchup, a little anchovy liquor, and a little butter rolled in flour. Cover and stew them gently for twenty minutes. Shake the pan round frequently to prevent the contents from sticking; squeeze in a little lemon. Cut the chines in four; pepper, salt, and broil them. Put the meat and sauce in a dish, and the chines round for garnish.

Lobster Curry Powder

Eleven ounces of coriander seed, six drachms of cayenne pepper, one ounce of cummin, one ounce and a half of black pepper, one ounce and a half of turmeric, three drachms of cloves, two drachms of cardamoms.

Lobster Patés

Rub two ounces of butter well into half a pound of flour; add one yolk of an egg and a little water, and make it into a stiff paste. Sheet your paté moulds very thin, fill them with crumbs of bread, and bake lightly. Turn out the crumbs and save them. Cut your lobster small; add to it a little white sauce, and season with pepper and salt. Take care that it is not too thin. Fill your moulds; cover with the crumbs which you saved, and a quarter of an hour before dinner put them into the oven to give them a light colour.

Oyster patés are done the same way.

Lobster Salad

Boil a cauliflower, pull it in pieces, and put it in a dish with a little pepper, salt, and vinegar. Have four or five hard-boiled eggs, boiled beet-root, small salad, and some anchovies, nicely cleaned and cut in lengths. Put a layer of small salad at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of the cauliflower, then the eggs cut in slices, then the beet, and so on. Take the claws and tail of the lobster, cut as whole as possible, and trim, to be laid on the top. The trimmings and what you can get out may be put in at the time you are laying the cauliflower, &c. in the dish. Make a rich salad sauce with a little elder vinegar in it, and pour it over. Lay the tails and claws on the top, and cross the shreds of the anchovies over them.

Mackarel à la maitre d’hotel

Boil the fish, and then put it in a stewpan, with a piece of butter and sweet herbs. Set it on the fire till the butter becomes oil.

Mackarel, to boil

Boil them in salt and water with a little vinegar. Fennel sauce is good to eat with them, and also coddled gooseberries.

Mackarel, to broil

You may split them or broil them whole; pepper and salt them well. For sauce, scald some mint and fennel, chop them small; then melt some butter and put your herbs in. You may scald some gooseberries and lay over your mackarel.

Mackarel, to collar

Collar them as eels, only omit the sage, and add sweet herbs, a little lemon-peel, and seasoning to your taste.

Mackarel, to fry

For frying you may stuff the fish with crumbs of bread, parsley well chopped, lemon-peel grated, pepper and salt, mixed with yolk of egg. Serve up with anchovy or fennel sauce.

Mackarel, to pickle

Cut the mackarel into four or five pieces; season them very high; make slits with a penknife, put in the seasoning, and fry them in oil to a good brown colour. Drain them very dry; put them into vinegar, if they are to be kept for any time; pour oil on the top.

Mackarel, to pot

Proceed in the same manner as with eels.

Mackarel, to souse

Wash and clean your fish: take out the roes, and boil them in salt and water; when enough, take them out and lay them in the dish; pour away half the liquor they were boiled in, and add to the rest of the liquor as much vinegar as will cover them and two or three bay leaves. Let them lie three days before they are eaten.

Mackarel Pie

Cut the fish into four pieces; season them to your taste with pepper, salt, and a little mace, mixed with a quarter of a pound of beef suet, chopped fine. Put at the bottom and top, and between the layers of fish, a good deal of young parsley, and instead of water a little new milk in the dish for gravy. If you like it rich, warm about a quarter of a pint of cream, which pour in the pie when baked; if not, have boiled a little gravy with the heads. It will take the same time to bake as a veal pie.

Mullet, to boil

Let them be boiled in salt and water, and, when you think them done enough, pour part of the water from them, and put a pint of red wine, two onions sliced, some nutmeg, salt, and vinegar, beaten mace, a bunch of sweet herbs, and the juice of a lemon. Boil all these well together, with two or three anchovies; put in your fish; and, when they have simmered some time, put them into a dish and strain the sauce over. If you like, shrimps or oysters may be added.

Mullet, to broil

Let the mullet be scaled and gutted, and cut gashes in their sides; dip them in melted butter, and broil them at a great distance from the fire. Sauce – anchovy, with capers, and a lemon squeezed into it.

Mullet, to fry

Carefully scale and gut the fish, score them across the back, and then dip them into melted butter. Melt some butter in a stewpan; let it clarify. Fry your mullet in it; when done, lay them on a warm dish. Sauce – anchovy and butter.

Oysters, to stew

Take a quart of large oysters; strain the liquor from them through a sieve; wash them well, and take off the beards. Put them in a stewpan, and drain the liquor from the settlings. Add to the oysters a quarter of a pound of butter mixed with flour and a gill of white wine, and grate in a little nutmeg with a gill of cream. Keep them stirred till they are quite thick and smooth. Lay sippets at the bottom of the dish; pour in your oysters, and lay fried sippets all round.

Another way

Put a quarter of a pound of butter into a clean stewpan, and let it boil. Strain a pint of oysters from their liquor; put them into the butter; and let them stew with some parsley minced small, a little shalot shred small, and the yolks of three eggs well beaten up with the liquor strained from the oysters. Put all these together into the stewpan with half a pound more butter; shake it and stew them a little; if too much, you make the oysters hard.

Oysters, ragout of

Twenty-five oysters, half a table-spoonful of soy, double the quantity of vinegar, a piece of butter, and a little pepper, salt, and flour.

Oysters, to pickle

Blanch the oysters, and strain off the liquor; wash the oysters in three or four waters; put them into a stewpan, with their liquor and half a pint of white wine vinegar, two onions sliced thin, a little parsley and thyme, a blade of mace, six cloves, Jamaica pepper, a dozen corns of white pepper, and salt according to your taste. Boil up two or three minutes; let them stand till cold; then put them into a dish, and pour the liquor over them.

Oyster Patés. No. 1

Stew the oysters in their own liquor, but do not let them be too much done; beard them; take a table-spoonful of pickled mushrooms, wash them in two or three cold waters to get out the vinegar; then cut each mushroom into four, and fry them in a little butter dusted over with flour. Take three table-spoonfuls of veal jelly, and two spoonfuls of cream; let it boil, stirring all the while; add a small bit of butter. Season with a pinch of salt, and one of cayenne pepper. Throw the oysters, which you have kept warm in a cloth near the fire, into the sauce; see that it is all hot; then have the patés ready, fill them with the oysters and sauce, and put a top on each. When the paste of oyster patés is done, remove the tops gently and cleanly with a knife; take out the flaky part of the paste inside and from the inside of the top; cut six little pieces of bread square so as to fill the inside; lay on the top of the paste. Then place them on a sheet of paper in a dish, and put them before the fire, covering them with a cloth to keep them hot. When you are going to serve them take out the piece of bread, and fill the patés with the oysters and sauce.

Oyster Patés. No. 2

Spread some puff-paste about half an inch thick. Cut out six pieces with a small tea-cup. Rub a baking sheet over with a brush dipped in water, and put the patés on it at a little distance from each other. Glaze them thoroughly with the yolk and white of egg mixed up; open a hole at the top of each with a small knife; cut six tops of the size of a crown-piece, and place them lightly on the patés. Let them be baked, and when done remove the tops, and place the crust on paper till ready to serve up; then fill them with oysters (as described in the preceding recipe) put the tops over them, and dish them upon a folded napkin.

Oyster Patés. No. 3

Parboil your oysters, and strain them from their liquor, wash the beard, and cut them in flour. Put them in a stewpan, with an ounce of butter rolled in flour, half a gill of cream, and a little grated lemon-peel, if liked. Free the oyster liquor from sediment, reduce it by boiling to one half; add cayenne pepper and salt. Stir it over the fire, and fill your patés.

Oyster Loaves

Cut out the crumb of three French rolls; lay them before the fire till they are hot through, turning them often. Melt half a pound of butter; put some into the loaves; put on their tops, and boil them till they are buttered quite through. Then take a pint of oysters, stewed with half a pint of water, one anchovy, a little pepper and salt, a quarter of a pound of butter, and as much sauce as will make your sauce thick. Give it a boil. Put as many oysters into your loaves as will go in; pour the rest of the sauce all over the loaves in the dish in which they are served up.

Oyster Pie

Beard the oysters; scald and strain them from their liquor, and season the liquor with pepper, salt, and anchovy, a lump of butter, and bread crumbs. Boil up to melt the anchovies; then just heat your oysters in it; put them all together into your pie-dish, and cover them with a puff-paste.

If you put your oysters into a fresh pie, you must cover them at the top with crisped crumbs of bread; add more to the savouring if you like it.

Perch, to fricassee

Boil the perch, and strip them of the bones; half cover them with white wine; put in two or three anchovies, a little pepper and salt, and warm it over the fire. Put in a little parsley and onions, with yolks of eggs well beaten. Toss it together; put in a little thick butter; and serve it up.

Pike, to dress

If you would serve it as a first dish, do not scale it; take off the gills, and, having gutted it, boil it in court bouillon, as a side-dish, or entrée. It may be served in many ways. Cut it into pieces, and put it into a stewpan, with a bit of butter, a bunch of all sorts of sweet herbs, and some mushrooms; turn it a few times over the fire, and shake in a little flour; moisten it with some good broth and a pint of white wine, and set it over a brisk fire. When it is done, add a trifle of salt and cayenne pepper, the yolk of three eggs, and half a pint of cream, stirring it till well mixed. Serve up hot.

Pike stuffed, to boil

Clean a large pike; take out the gills; prepare a stuffing with finely grated bread, all sorts of sweet-herbs, particularly thyme, some onions, grated lemon-peel, oysters chopped small, a piece of butter, the boiled yolk of two eggs, and a sufficient quantity of suet to hold the ingredients together. Put them into the fish, and sew it up. Turn the tail into the mouth, and boil it in pump water, with two spoonfuls of vinegar and a handful of salt. It will take forty minutes to boil, if a large fish.

Pike, to boil, à-la-Française

Wash well, clean, and scale a large pike, and cut it into three pieces; boil an equal quantity of white wine and water with lemon-peel, and when the liquor boils put your pike in, with a handful of salt. When done, lay it on sippets, and stick it with bits of fried bread. Sauce – melted butter, with slices of lemon in it, the yolks of three eggs, and some grated nutmeg. Pour your sauce over the pike, and serve it up.

Pike, to broil

Split it, and scotch it with a knife on the outside; season it with salt; put the gridiron on a clear fire, make it very hot, then lay on the pike; baste it with butter, turn it often, and, when broiled crisp and stiff put it into a dish, and serve it up with butter and the juice of lemons, or white wine vinegar. Garnish with slices of oranges or lemons.

Pike in Court Bouillon

Scale and well wash your pike; lay it in a pan; pour vinegar and salt over it; let it lie for an hour, then take it out, season with pepper, a little salt, sweet herbs, cloves, and a bay leaf, with a piece of butter. Wrap it up in a napkin, and put it into a stewpan, with some white wine, a lemon sliced, a little verjuice, nutmeg, cloves, and a bay leaf. Let this liquor boil very fast; put in the pike, and when done lay it on a warm dish, and strain the liquor into a saucepan; add to it an anchovy washed and boned, a few capers, a little water, and a piece of butter rolled in flour: let these simmer till of proper thickness, and pour them over the fish.