The home cook book

Fish may be planked before a coal fire, but the broilingoven of a gas stove is more excellent for this sort of cooking. First have your plank of hard, smooth wood. It must be of a size to go easily in your oven; the corners had best be rounded oflf smoothly. Make ready your succulent shad, or indeed whatever fish you choose, by scaling, drawing, splitting down the back, and a quick, cold plunge, and upon the heated plank lay the fish. Its skin side must be against the board. Set under the broiler, and cook quickly for the first five minutes, more slowly afterward. As the broiling goes on, baste the fish with boiling hot water slightly salted. When it is done, which ought to be, unless it is very thick, in from twelve to seventeen minutes, draw the plank from the oven, set it on a hot platter or a napkin, spread with butter, garnish with thin slices or quarters of lemon and parsley, and serve — the fish on the board and all on the platter or napkin. A word should be added about the care of the plank on which the fish is cooked. Do not wash it with soap. Scour it clean, wash it with boiling water, dry it perfectly, treat it carefully and keep it long, for an old board, that is one upon which fish have been planked, is better than a new one for cooking. SCALLOPED FISH Pick in small pieces two pounds of cold boiled fish. Make a cream by heating a pint of milk and mixing in quarter of a cup of flour and a scant teacup of butter. When the milk thickens season with salt, pepper, thyme, and chopped parsley, and if your taste directs also with a minced onion. Take at once from the fire, and as the cream cools stir in the beaten yolks of four eggs. Have a buttered baking dish, and put in a layer of the cream, then a layer of the fish, then of cream, and then of fish, so alternating till the top layer of cream is reached. On the top layer put grated cheese and breadcrumbs, and bake in a moderate oven about forty minutes. STEAMED FISH Have about a two-and-a-half-pound fish, cod or halibut, mashed very fine and raw. Season to your taste with salt, pepper, and onion- juice. Add three eggs beaten together, three tablespoons of flour, and milk enough to moisten. Put the fish in a mold and steam two hours. For a sauce to eat with this fish, follow the directions for a cream sauce. Season the sauce highly with cayenne, and add boiled lobster cut in small bits. CREAMED COD OR HALIBUT Take boiled cod or halibut left from another meal and kept cold. Pick it to pieces, and take out all the bones and skin. To the proportion of about half a pound of the fish take a tablespoon of butter and the same quantity of flour. In a saucepan over a moderate fire stir the butter and flour together, add half a [cup of milk and a pinch of salt, and when the whole boils up a dash of pepper. Stir in the fish, heat slowly, and put in a hot dish, setting halves of hard-boiled eggs round the edge. CREAMED FROGS' LEGS