Blue Ribbon and Pure Gold cook book

Vegetable Chowder—4 cup diced salt pork or bacon, 3 tablespoons fat, 2 cups diced potatoes, 1 cup diced turnip, 1 cup diced carrot, 1 medium-sized onion, minced, 2 medium-sized tomatoes, 1 cup minced celery, or 1 tablespoon dried celery leaves, or Pure Gold celery salt. Cook the pork until brown, and brown the vegetables in the fat. Cover them with boiling water, add the salt, and cook them until tender. Add 1 quart of hot milk. Season further with salt and Pure Gold paprika if desired. Corn Chowder—For corn chowder, follow the directions for vegetable chowder, omitting the turnip and carrot. Use 2 cups of corn, either canned or fresh, and 1 cup of diced potato. Fish Chowder—Make a vegetable chowder, and add 1 cup of flaked cooked fish. Codfish may be used successfully. If salt fish is used, wash and soak it in cold water for 1 hour. Add it to the chowder, allowing 10 minutes to heat it thoroughly. Do not boil the chowder after the fish is added. To be eatable, they should be perfectly fresh, the eyes clear, the gills red, the scales bright, the flesh firm and free from any unpleasant odor, and to secure the best possible flavor should be cooked as soon as possible after leaving the sea, river or pond. ‘They should be scaled and cleaned as soon as they come home from the market, washed quickly without soaking, removing all the blood. Sprinkle salt on the inside and put in a cold place until wanted. The favorite modes of cooking fish are boiled, baked, broiled and pan-fried. Steaming fish is excellent, but it is not generally known that fish can be prepared this way. CUTS OF FISH 1. A Steak—This is a slice about 32-inch thick, and is always cut from good-sized fish. 2. A Fillet is a piece of fish from which skin and bone have been removed. 3. A Turban is a steak boned and skinned, and served in a round, compact form. To Skin a Fish—Cut a narrow strip along the backbone, using a sharp knife, and removing the fin on the back; then run up the knife through and under the bony part of the gills and peel the skin off backwards toward the tail, holding the bony part of the gills with the thumb and finger; then peel off the skin from the other side in the same manner. To Bone a Fish—Fish, like herring and shad, abounding in fine bones, are not boned; but whitefish, mackerel, cod, etc., can be boned as follows: clean, skin and spread it out flat on a board; then begin at the tail and run a sharp, thin knife under the flesh, close to the bone, and loosen the backbone with the forefinger. Take pains not to break the flakes; and when the flesh on one side is loosened, slip the knife under the bone on the other. When all the bone is loosened, pull it from the flesh. Any small bones remaining in the flesh can be felt and removed with the fingers. The earthy or muddy taste which taints some kinds of fresh water fish, can be removed by rubbing on salt and letting them stand a few hours. Hints—lIf fish are dipped in hot water for a minute they will scale much easier. ‘To remove scales there is no instrument equal to a currycomb—it is every way superior to a knife. The scales and entrails should be removed, and also the blood and white skin along the backbone, as soon as possible after the fish is caught; then rinse, wipe dry, and keep near ice. 26 Blue Ribbon Cook Book Baked Fish—Select medium-sized fish, as whitefish, to bake whole. Remove the eyes and leave the head and tail on.