Use cold fish and potatoes, if there are any in the larder; if not, boil a piece of blue smoked cod in some water for five minutes. Flake it up free from skin and bone and put it into a basin; mash up the potatoes and mix them in with the pepper and salt. Bind into a paste with an egg; rub some dripping on a baking sheet, turn the mixture on to it and shape into the letter S, brush over with egg or milk, and bake till brown. Slip it off on to a hot dish, and garnish with parsley.
Fillet the fish, put the bones in a saucepan, and just cover them with water. When they boil, skim well, and add the tomatoes sliced up, the peppercorns and vegetables; boil quickly without the lid for half an hour, then strain, rubbing the pulp of the tomatoes through with the liquor. Make a smooth sauce with half a pint of this liquor, the butter, and the flour; if the colour is not good add a few drops of cochineal. Fold the fillets of fish neatly, and bake in the oven with a little lemon juice, and covered with a buttered paper. Arrange them on a dish and pour the sauce over. Serve hot.
Soak herring a few hours, when washed and cleaned, bone and chop. To one herring take one onion, one sour apple, a slice of white bread which has been soaked in vinegar, chop all these; add one teaspoon oil, a little cinnamon and pepper. Put on platter in shape of a herring with head at top and tail at bottom of dish, and sprinkle the chopped white of a hard-boiled egg over fish and then the chopped yolk.
Cut the ham round, and lay it in water all night, boil it tender as you would do for eating, take off the skin, strew over it a little pepper, and bake it in a deep dish, put to it a pint of water, and half a pound of butter; you must bake it in puff-paste; but lay no paste in the bottom of the dish; when you send it to the table send it without a lid. It is proper for a top or bottom dish either summer or winter.
Soak Allinson wholemeal bread in cold milk and water until soft, then rub smooth, grate 1 onion, beat up 1 egg, and add a few flavouring herbs, and pepper and salt to taste. Mix the whole together, put in a pie-dish, place a few small pieces of butter on the top, and bake about 1/2 hour, or until done. Eat with vegetables and potatoes.
Having boiled the crabs, extract all the meat from the shell, cut it fine, and season it to your taste with nutmeg, salt, and cayenne pepper. Add a bit of butter, some grated bread crumbs, and sufficient vinegar to moisten it. Fill the back-shells of the crab with the mixture; set it before the fire, and brown it by holding a red-hot shovel or a salamander a little above it. Cover a large dish, with small slices of dry toast with the crust cut off. Lay on each slice a shell filled with the crab. The shell of one crab will contain the meat of two.
Take three or four pig's ears as large as you would have your dish in bigness, clean and boil them very tender, cut them in small pieces the length of your finger, and fry them with butter till they be brown; so put them into a stew-pan with a little brown gravy, a lump of butter, a spoonful of vinegar, and a little mustard and salt, thicken'd with flour; take two or three pig's feet and boil them very tender, fit for eating, then cut them in two and take out the large bones, dip them in egg, and strew over them a few bread-crumbs, season them with pepper and salt; you may either fry or broil them, and lay them in the middle of your dish with the pig's ears. They are proper for a side-dish.
Take a couple of young Capons, Trusse and set them and fill their bellies with Marrow, put them into a Pipkin with a knuckle of Veale, a Neck of Mutton, and a Marrow bone, and some sweet bread of Veale; season your Broth with Cloves, Mace, and a little Salt, set it to the fire, and let it boyle gently till your Capons be enough, but boyle them not too much; as your Capons boyle, make ready the bottomes and Tops of eight or ten new Rowles, and put them dryed into a faire Silver Dish wherein you serve the Capons; set it on the fire, and put to your bread, two Ladlefuls of Broth wherein your Capons are boyled and a Ladlefull of the Gravy of Mutton; so cover your Dish, and let it stand till you Dish up yovr Capons if need require, adde now and then a Ladlefull of Broth and Gravy, least the bread grow dry; when you are ready to serve it, first lay in the Marrow bone, then the Capons on each side, then fill up your Dish with the Gravy of Mutton, wherein you must wring the juyce of a Lemon or two, then with a spoon take off all the fat that swimmeth on the pottage, then garnish your Capon with the sweet Breads and some Lemons, and so serve it.
1 can of fish, or 1 pint. 1 large cup of cracker or bread crumbs. 1 large cup of white sauce.
Prepare this dish almost as you did the scalloped oysters. Take out all the bones and skin and juice from the fish; butter a baking-dish, put in a layer of fish, then salt and pepper, then a layer of crumbs and butter, and a layer of white sauce, then fish, seasoning, crumbs and butter again, and have the crumbs on top. Dot over with butter and brown in the oven, or serve in small dishes.
Take a Calves Chaldron, after it is little more then half boyled, and when it is cold, cut it into little bits as big as Walnuts; season it with beaten Cloves, Salt, Nutmeg, Mace, and a little Pepper, an Onion, Parsley, and a little Tarragon, all shred very small, then put it into a frying-pan, with a Ladle-full of strong broth, and a little piece of sweet Butter, so fry it; when it is fryed enough, have a little lear made with the Gravy of Mutton, the juyce of a Lemon and Orange, the yolks of three or four Eggs, and a little Nutmeg grated therein; put all this to your Chaldrons in the Pan, Toss your Fricat two or three times, then dish it, and so serve it up.
