Foods and home making

Clean the fish. Add the salt to the milk. Pour the milk into a shallow dish. Dip the fish into the milk, then into the crumbs. Put half of the butter or pork fat, in bits, in one of the utensils suggested in the previous section. Add the breaded fish. Put the rest of the butter or fat on top of the fish. Bake the fish uncovered in a moderate oven — 3750 F. — for about 30 minutes or until the flesh separates readily from the bones. Serve hot. Season. Garnish with lemon and parsley. If you wish, serve with mock hollandaise sauce. Hollandaise sauce consists of a mixture of egg yolks, lemon juice, hot water, and seasoning. It is somewhat difficult to make because the egg may be so easily overcooked. There is a sauce called mock hollandaise, which is made by adding lemon and egg yolk to white sauce and cooking slightly. This sauce is much easier to prepare than hollandaise sauce and is good. The recipe follows : Cook the ingredients for mock hollandaise sauce either over hot water or over an asbestos mat. Add the butter to the white sauce. Heat until the butter is melted. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl. Add a small portion of the hot sauce to the yolks. Mix well. Add the egg mixture to the remainder of the sauce. Stir and cook just as you did soft custard (see page 317) until the egg is thickened. Add the lemon juice. Serve at once. What are oysters ? Perhaps you have seen an oyster on the half shell or you may have seen an oyster shell from which the oyster has been taken. An oyster is a kind of fish. It differs, however, from the fish about which you studied in the earlier part of this chapter. An oyster is covered with a shell. It is called a shellfish. Oysters are found in salt water. MOCK HOLLANDAISE SAUCE 1 cup medium white sauce (see page 246) 2 tablespoons butter 2 egg yolks 2 tablespoons lemon juice Chicken and Fish for Dinner 407 At what time of year should one buy oysters? We think of oysters as a cold-weather food. Like all fish, oysters spoil readily. Although not unwholesome, they are not as plump or as tasty in warm weather as in cold. Hence they are found in market during eight months of the year, from September to April — the months that have the letter “R” in their names. What kind of oysters shall one buy? At market there are often oysters of different sizes. The smallest oysters are con- sidered the best for serving raw. Oysters to be served raw are often bought and served in the half shell. Such oysters are called Blue Points , because they were originally grown in the water of Blue Point, New York. For frying, oysters of large size are desired. Large oysters of uniform size are sometimes called select oysters. For stewing and scalloping, it is well to buy oysters that are intermediate or irregular in size. These are usually cheaper than select oysters. What are some points to remember in buying oysters? Al- though oysters grow in the ocean, they are sent to all parts of the country. Because they spoil readily, they must be kept cold. This is usually done by taking oysters out of their shells, washing them, and packing them in containers. The contain- ers are surrounded with ice. Sometimes oysters are greenish. This color is usually due to the oyster’s having fed on vegetable materials. Such oysters are not harmful.