FoodNetArchive

Cassell's dictionary of cookery

1892

Page 1504 · 3 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1892. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
Take half a dozen red mullet, scrape them lightly, cut off their heads, cut them open, take out the inside, and carefully preserve the Hver. Di\ade the fish in halves, and lift the flesh from the bones, so that each mullet will make two fillets. Dry and flour these, and dip them either into egg and seasoned bread-crumbs, or into a little frying-batter. Fry in hot fat, and when they are Ughtly browned on both sides serve on a hot dish, and send a sauce prepared as follows to table with them : — Beat the boiled livers of the fish with the back of a wooden spoon till they are smooth. Drop them into a saucepan containing the third of a pint of thin melted butter made with water in which the livers have been boiled for five or six minutes. Stir the sauce over the fire till it is thick, season with pepper and salt, and just before serving add to it a dessert-spoonful of lemon-juiceRed Mullet, Filleted and Fried and half a glassful of claret, if liked. Time to ivj, ten minutes or more. Red Mullet, Fried. — Melt two oimces of butter in a frying-pan. Put in one good- sized or two small mullet, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them, and season with pepper and saltRed Mullet, Fried. Let them fry over a gentle fire until they are done enough, turning them over once or twice that they may be equally cooked. Serve on a hot dish, either plain or with melted butter, Dutch sauce, or anchovy sauce. Time to fry, twenty to thirty minutes. Red Mullet, Marinaded and Broiled. — Prepare the mullet in the usual way. Rub each one with a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice and a tea-spoonful of salad-oil, and sprinkle a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg over it. Lay all the fish in a dish, sprinkle over them a table-spoonful of chopped parsley and two shallots finely mincedRed Mullet, Marinaded and Broiled, and let them lie for three hours. Fold in buttered paper, and broil according to the directions given for Red Mullet en Papillote. Time to broil, twenty to twenty-five minutes. Red Mullet, Roman Cookery of.— The Romans served the mullet with a season- ing of pepper, rue, onions, dates, and mustard, to which they added the flesh of the sea-hog reduced to a pulp, and oil. When the liver alone was to be eaten, it was cooked, and then seasoned with pepper, salt, or a little garum ; some oil was added, and hare's or fowl's liver, and then oil was poured over the whole. " The unbridled and cruel luxury of ancient Rome," says Soyer, " required that this fish should be cooked by a slow fire, on the table and under a glass, that the guests might gloat on its suif er- ings before they satiated their appetites vnih. its flesh. It is true this barbarous gratification was very expensive, and it was necessary to be very rich to indulge in it, consequently it was decidedly very fashionable, quite natural, and in very best taste."