Practical West African cookery

3. Take a small native pot with a cover ( telle J, and put at the bottom a layer- of sliced onion and tomato. Lay on top 3 or 4 fillets of fish sprinkled with salt and pepper (chopped parsley, tatassa, thyme, and nutmeg if available). Cover with another layer of tomato and onion, then another layer of the seasoned fish and a final layer of tomato and onion. Pour over the pint of strained liquid and add the two berkono (and cloves). Put the cover on the pot and fit it down as well as possible. 4. Stand the pot in the vegetable boiler and pour in sufficient boiling water to reach half way up the pot. Put the cover on the boiler and keep the water boiling for 40 minutes. Serve in the native pot. Jugged Fish. (II) 2 lbs. of fish, uncooked. Trimmings and bones of the 3 or 4 tomatoes. 2 teaspoonfuls salt. 1 teaspoonful pepper. 2 native pepper (berkono). fish. 1 large onion. Curried Fish. (I). A useful way of serving any remains of cold boiled fish is to break it up slightly with a fork, mix it with a curry sauce (see index), and serve it up with a crown of boiled rice around it. Tinned Salmon. (I). Salmon and sardines are the only two really useful tinned fish. Salmon can be prepared in almost as many ways as fresh fish and the same recipes can be used for salad, croquettes, kedgeree and fish pie as for fresh fish. It is excellent grilled whole, hut as it is liable to break on the grill, it is best to turn out the tin into the frying pan and to fry it with a teaspoonful of butter or lard until a light crisp brown. Serve with sauce hollandaise (see index) or with melted butter (see index). It can be served cold with lettuce leaves, sliced tomatoes and oil, vinegar, salt and pepper or mayonnaise sauce (see index). GENERAL. African eggs are mostly fit for elections only. The simplest way to determine whether they are still employable for less combative purposes is to place them in a basin of water. The good ones will lie on their sides at the bottom, the half-bad ones will also sink to the bottom, where they will stand on end, while the bad ones will float at the top, often with sundry painful bobbings. To keep a quantity of eggs, pack them in an old empty tin (flour or rice) filled with ashes. For boiling, ducks’ eggs are the best if perfectly fresh. Boiled Eggs. (1). Slip the egg gently with a spoon into boiling water and keep the water boiling sharply for one and a half minutes. This is quite long enough to soft boil an African egg. A duck’s egg will take longer, about two and a half minutes, but in both cases the water must not cease to boil while the egg is cooking. Never drop the egg into the water, but slide it in on a spoon. Poached Eggs. (1). Fill a frying pan with boiling water and add to it a teaspoonful of salt. Break the egg into the pan. This is done by holding the egg in the right hand and cracking it gently against the edge of the pan nearly all round the middle. Then take it in in both bands and break it open in the middle, holding it close above the boiling water so that the yolk does not break as it falls in. When the white