Bake the fish in the oven, unless there is cold fish in the larder, which will do just as well; take away the skin and bone, and flake it up. Make a sauce of the butter, flour, and milk; season with anchovy, pepper, salt, and lemon juice; stir in the fish and mix well. Line some small patty pans with flaky pastry, put a spoonful of the mixture in the centre, cover with a round of pastry, press the edges together, and trim into a neat shape; make a small hole in the centre with a skewer, brush over with egg or milk, put into a quick oven, and bake for about twenty minutes. Dish on a fancy paper, and garnish each patty with a tiny sprig of parsley.
Cut up a celery root, one onion, and a sprig of parsley, tie the fish in a napkin and lay it on this bed of roots; pour in enough water to cover and add a dash of vinegar--the vinegar keeps the fish firm--then boil over a quick fire and add more salt to the water in which the fish has been boiled. Lay your fish on a hot platter and prepare the following sauce: set a cup of sweet cream in a kettle, heat it, add a tablespoon of fresh butter, salt and pepper, and thicken with a tablespoon of flour which has been wet with a little cold milk, stir this paste into the cream and boil about one minute, stirring constantly; pour over the fish. Boil two eggs, and while they are boiling, blanch about a dozen or more almonds and stick them into the fish, points up; cover the eggs with cold water, peel them, separate the whites from the yolks, chop each separately; garnish the fish, first with a row of chopped yolks, then whites, until all is used: lay chopped parsley all around the platter. Fresh cod and striped bass may be cooked in this way.
Any kind of light fish--that is, cod, cusk, flounder, etc. Skin the fish by starting at the head and drawing down towards the tail; then take out the bones. Cut the fish into pieces about three inches square, and salt and pepper well. Butter such a dish, as you would use for escolloped oysters. Put in one layer of fish, then moisten well with sauce; add more fish and sauce, and finally cover with fine bread crumbs. Bake half an hour. The dish should be rather shallow, allowing only two layers of fish. Sauce for au gratin: One pint of stock, three table-spoonfuls of butter, two of flour, juice of half a lemon, half a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a slice of onion, the size of half a dollar, and about as thick--chopped very fine, (one table-spoonful of onion juice is better); one table-spoonful of vinegar, salt, pepper. Heat the butter in a small frying-pan, and when hot, add the dry flour. Stir constantly until a rich brown; then add, gradually, the cold stock, stirring all the time. As soon as it boils, season well with salt and pepper, and then add the other seasoning. This quantity is enough for three pounds of fish, weighed after being skinned and boned, and will serve six persons if it is the only solid dish for dinner, or ten if served in a course. Another way to serve fish au gratin, is to skin it, cut off the head, and take out the back-bone; and there are then two large pieces of fish. Season the fish, and prepare the sauce as before. Butter a tin sheet that will fit loosely into a large baking-pan. Lay the fish on this, and moisten well with the sauce. Cover thickly with bread crumbs, and cook twenty-five minutes in a rather quick oven. Then slip on a hot dish, and serve with tomato, Tartare or Hollandaise sauce poured around the fish.
Boil the macaroni in the oyster liquor or in weak stock till quite soft. Rub a little butter on a dish, cut the macaroni into pieces two inches long and lay it at the bottom. On this place the oysters, and season them with cayenne, salt, and a little lemon juice or nutmeg. Pour over the milk or sauce, cover with bread crumbs, and brown it in a quick oven. A few little pieces of butter laid on top of the crumbs make a richer dish. It must be served very hot.
Take a leg of veal, take off the thick part and cut in thin slices for collops, beat them with a paste-pin 'till they be very thin; season them with mace, pepper and salt; fry them over a quick fire, not over brown; when they are fried put them into a stew-pan with a little gravy, two or three spoonfuls of white wine, two spoonfuls of oyster-pickle if you have it, and a little lemon-peel; then shake them over a stove in a stew-pan, but don't let them boil over much, it only hardens your collops; take the fat part of your veal, stuff it with forc'd-meat, and boil it; when it is boiled lay it in the middle of your dish with the collops; lay about your collops slices of crisp bacon, and forc'd-meat-balls. Garnish your dish with slices of lemon and oysters, or mushrooms.
Mince the onion, parsley, and bacon very finely, and put them into a basin with the seasoning and crumbs, and mix thoroughly. Butter a dish in which the fish can be both cooked and served. Spread half the seasoning on it, wash and dry the fish and lay it on this bed of seasoning; spread the rest of the seasoning on the top, pour over gently the gravy. Cover with a few raspings and put the butter on in tiny pieces. Put it into a quick oven and bake from 15 to 20 minutes, according to the thickness of the fish. Pin a paper collar round the dish, and serve at once.
Line patty-pans with thin pastry, pressing it well to the tin. Put a piece of bread or a ball of paper in each. Cover them with paste and brush them over with the white of an egg. Cut an inch square of thin pastry, place on the centre of each, glaze this also with egg, and bake in a quick oven fifteen to twenty minutes. Remove the bread or paper when half cold. Scald as many oysters as you require (allowing two for each patty, three if small) in their own liquor. Cut each in four and strain the liquor. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter and two of flour into a thick saucepan; stir them together over the fire till the flour smells cooked, and then pour half a pint of oyster liquor and half a pint of milk into the flour and butter. (If you have cream use it instead of milk.) Stir till it is a thick, smooth sauce. Put the oysters into it and let them boil once. Beat the yolks of two eggs. Remove the oysters for one minute from the fire, then stir the eggs into them till the sauce looks like thick custard. Fill the patties with this oyster fricassee, taking care to make it hot by standing in boiling water before dinner on the day required, and to make the patty cases hot before you fill them.
Pick and draw them very carefully, salt and dredge with flour, and roast with a quick fire ten or fifteen minutes. Serve on toast with butter and pepper. You can put in each one an oyster dipped in butter and then in bread crumbs before roasting. They are also very nice broiled.
Select the large ones, used for frying, and first dip them in beaten egg, then in either cracker or bread crumbs and cook upon a fine wire gridiron, over a quick fire. Toast should be made ready in advance, and a rich cream sauce poured over the whole. After pouring on the sauce, finely cut celery strewn over the top adds to their delicacy. Or wash oysters in the shell and put them on hot coals, or upon the top of a hot stove, or bake them in a hot oven; open the shells with an oyster-knife, taking care to lose none of the liquor. Dip the toast into hot, salted water quickly and turn out the oyster and liquor over the toast; season with salt and pepper and a teaspoonful of melted butter over each. Oysters steamed in the shell are equally as good.
Pare very thin, medium potatoes as near a size as possible. Have ready a pot of boiling water, salted, drop in the potatoes and keep them at a quick boil until tender. Serve with a batter made by beating to a cream two tablespoons of butter, one-half tablespoon of lemon juice and one tablespoon of finely minced parsley; add salt and a dash of cayenne pepper; spread over the hot potatoes, and it will melt into a delicious dressing. This is especially nice to serve with fish.
