Wholesome cookery

Butter a dish ; spread on this butter some finely chopped parsley, and a little onion, salt, and a little nutmeg ; then place the whitings (boned whitings are preferable). Pour some hot butter over them, then equal quantities of white wine and stock. Put this dish in the oven, or on the top of your stove, with a cover over. When half cooked, turn the fish over carefully. When quite cooked, pour the sauce into a saucepan without disturbing the fish ; add some butter and fiour ; simmer till thick, then add pepper and some lemon-juice. Pour the sauce back over the fish and serve in the dish the whitings are cooked in. 58. — Buttered Whitings. Sprinkle a little pepper and salt over the whitings, flour them thoroughly on both sides, place some butter on a gratin dish, lay the whitings upon it, and put them into a hot oven. Let them cook for some minutes, then turn them carefully. Squeeze a little lemon-juice over them. The whitings must be a rich gold colour, and the butter brown, not black. Mackerels, herrings, soles, filleted haddocks, etc., can be cooked in this manner. 68a. — Broiled Whitings. Sprinkle them with pepper and salt, and pour over a little oil. Leave them for an hour or two, then broil them before the fire ; turn them frequently ; serve over them any sauce liked. 69. — Cod “ a la Creme.” Boil a nice piece of cod, either fresh cod or very slightly salted, in boiling water. Drain it and cut into fillets. Blend 3 or 4 ounces of butter with flour, pepper, and nutmeg (salt, if the cod used is not salted) ; let it thicken over the fire, stirring all the time. Now add half a pint of cream and some very finely chopped parsley. Stir carefully for five minutes ; then put in the fillets of cod and simmer gently for 10 minutes ; then serve. 60. — Bouillie a Baisse of Cod. Put in a saucepan some chopped leeks or onions ; add some oil or butter; let it colour; then add a quart of water, a sprig or two of parsley, a bay leaf. pepper, salt, and pinch of saffron, and some whole peeled potatoes. When the potatoes are nearly cooked, put in four slices of cod, and boil it till cooked. Dish the cod and potatoes up on one dish ; strain the gravy on to some nice slices of French roll into another dish, and serve the contents of both dishes together. Slightly salted cod may be cooked as above. 61. — Bouille a Baisse. Take a variety of fishes, such as mullet, whiting, soles, haddock — a small lobster if shell-fish is liked; cut them in pieces. Put in a wide and tolerably shallow saucepan a wine-glass of oil, 1 chopped onion, a bay leaf, a clove of garlic ; toss all this together. Then place your pieces of fish in ; add some salt to taste, a few slices of lemon, a few slices of tomato, a pinch of powdered saffron, a glass of white light wine ; add enough water to cover the fish ; boil up quickly on a hot fire. The fish ought to be cooked in a quai’ter of an hour, and the gravy sufficiently reduced. Take thefish out, strain the sauce, put it back on the fire ; add a spoonful of finely chopped parsley, and a very little flour (not enough to make the sauce thick, but enough to prevent it being quite thin) ; place some slicesof French I’oll in a deep dish; pour the sauce over. Place the fish in another dish, and serve the two dishes together. N.B. — Of course the true bouille a baisse is mado- D