The girl's own cookery book

draw it back, and let it simmer gently for a few minutes, till it is done. Take up the fish and thicken the water in which it was boiled by adding to it a tablespoonful of flour, mixed smoothly with a gill of milk to each pint of water. Stir the sauce till it boils ; add a slice of butter or dripping, and keep boiling for ten minutes. Put in the fish, let it get hot once more, and turn the whole into a dish. Eat with vinegar and pepper. Fish Pie. — Take fish, prepared as above ; remove the skin and bones, and tear the flesh into flakes. Measure it, andmix it with an equal quantity of cold mashed potatoes, a little dripping, pepper and salt. Put the mixture into a well-greased pie-dish, place a little dripping on the top, and make hot in an oven. If liked, cold boiled rice may be used instead of potatoes ; or the potatoes and fish can be placed in layers in a well-greased pie-dish and baked. Baked Hake.— Hake and conger eel, both excellent fish, may, when they are to be had at all, be bought very cheap at about twopence per pound. Prepared as follows they will furnish a delicious dinner. Flat fish may be cooked in the same way. Clean the fish ; if it is flat, divide it through the bones ; if round, cut it into slices. Melt a good slice of dripping in a tin baking-dish ; arrange the fish in this ; pour over it about two tablespoonfuls of water mixed with a little vinegar, sprinkle on the top a seasoning mixture composed of a small onion, boiled and chopped, bread-crumbs, pepper and salt. Put pieces of dripping here and there upon the fish, and bake till the flesh leaves the bones easily. Time according to thickness. If a piece of hake, cod, or conger eel can be obtained, and a wire stand (to be bought for a penny) to raise the fish above the tin, is at hand, the fish may be laid upon the stand, the vinegar and water may be poured underneath, and sliced turnips, sliced onions, or sliced potatoes may be put in the tin. The fish can then be baked gently and basted frequently for about an hour. When half cooked the fish should be turned, that it may be equally cooked all over. Herrings, both fresh and salt, are largely consumed by the poor, as are also haddocks fresh and dried. It is The Girl’s Own Cookery Book. scarcely necessary to say how dried and salt fish should be cooked. Fresh herrings are excellent when opened, emptied, boned, seasoned and rolled, put into a pie-dish with vinegar and water, and baked for three-quarters of an hour. A few potatoes baked in a jar with herrings thus pickled form a most appetising dish. Good soup is wholesome and nourishing, but it is not so much made or used as it deserves to be. The following is Mrs. Buckton’s recipe for an excellent vegetable soup. Put a quart of water into a saucepan, and while it boils prepare the vegetables by cleaning and cutting into small dice an onion and a lettuce. Throw these into boiling water, with two ounces of green pease, and two potatoes cooked or uncooked. Mix a tablespoonful of flour or oatmeal with two ounces of dripping, add this to the soup, with pepper, salt, and a pinch of sugar. Simmer gently for nearly an hour, mix with half a pint of boiling milk, and serve with sippets of bread. If liked, carrots or dried pease can be substituted for the green pease, but dried pease will need to boil for two hours or more.