Handbook of practical cookery

pan, and boil for ten minutes longer. Chop now very finely the lean ham and the suet, place them in a basin, add the remainder of the salt, the pepper, cayenne, mace, nutmeg, lemon peel, the savoury herbs, and bind all together with the egg. Place this forcemeat in a pie- dish, lay in the pieces of eel, and pour over the stock and cream from the sauce-pan. Cover the pie-dish with puff paste. ' (See directions, page 195.) Place the pie-dish in a quick oven, and bake twenty-five minutes. Fricassee of Lobster. — One lobster, one gill of cream, one gill and a half of milk, one half tea-spoonful salt, one quarter tea-spoonful pepper, one grain cayenne, one ounce and a half butter, the juice of half a lemon, one half ounce flour. Plunge a lobster into a large pan of boiling water, and boil it for twenty minutes. Remove the meat from the lobster. Melt then in a sauce-pan the butter, add the flour, stir both well together ; then add by degrees the milk and cream, stir till boiling ; add the pepper, salt, and cayenne, then the meat from the lobster ; cover the-sauce-pau, draw it on one side, and let all simmer very slowly for ten minutes. Take the pan from the fire, and put before serving on a very hot dish ; stir in the lemon-juice. FISH.—FIRST DIVISION. Filet de Sole a-la-Maitre d'Hotel.— Take for this two large soles, two ounces of butter, one half ounce of flour, four table-spoonfuls of cream, one half tea-spoonful of lemonjuice, one dessert-spoonful of chopped parsley, one half saltspoonful of salt, one half salt-spoonful of pepper. Begin this by reversing the usual rule for cleaning fish ; skin the sole first, and then fillet it. To do this the skin must be loosened at the tail, the fish being held firmly to the table with a dry towel, and with the disengaged hand the skin quickly torn off. This process must be repeated, as the sole has two distinct sides to be relieved of skin. Make then an incision straight down the back with a sharp knife, and pressing the knife as closely as possible to the backbone, BOILED COD-FISH. 33 separate the flesh from it, removing the four fillets. Roll each fillet separately, in the fashion of a rolled jelly-cake ; place them side by side in a slightly greased tin ; squeeze over each a little of the lemon- juice, to preserve their colour ; cover them with a piece of greased kitchen-paper ; and bake in a brisk oven ten minutes. While the fillets are baking, cover the heads and skins of the fish with cold water, and boil for five minutes. Then melt in a small sauce-pan the butter, add to it the flour, and one gill of the liquor obtained by boiling the heads and skins ; boil all for two minutes, stirring meantime, when it must be taken from the fire, and the cream, pepper, and salt added. Put the fillets now into a flat dish, pour this sauce around them, and sprinkle over each fillet a little of the chopped parsley ; and serve. NOTE.— Large flounder may also be prepared after this recipe with the same result. Boiled Cod-fish. — Provide four pounds of cod, middle cut, one large table-spoonful of vinegar, one half table-spoonful of salt.