Virginia Cookery-book

Pick all the fish from the bones, and have ready the following sauce : Put one ounce of flour into a stewpan, to which add, by degrees, one quart of milk, stirring it very smoothly, then add two peeled shallots, a bunch of parsley, and a sprig of thyme, tied together, a little nutmeg, a teaspoonful of salt, and the same of white pepper. Place it over the fire, stirring it until it forms a thickish sauce ; take it from the fire, stir in a quarter of a pound of butter, and pass it through a sieve. Put some of the same in a baking-dish, then the fish, well seasoned with salt and white pepper — so alternately sauce and fish — sprinkle bread-crumbs on the top, warm before the fire half an hour, brown with a salamander. Any remains of firm fish may be dressed acceptably in this manner. To Dress Bass or Sheep's-head. Take a bass or sheep's-head eighteen or twenty inches long, put it into a pan, place that in a Dutch oven, add half a pint of tomato catsup, a large spoonful of butter, half a pint of water, salt, black and red pepper to suit your taste. Cook it over a quick fire, and serve it up with the dressing. Smaller fish may be dressed in the same manner, proportioning the quantity of dressing to the size of the fish, and using instead of the Dutch oven a casserole or chafing-dish. Baked Blackfish. (From "The Carolina Housewife.") After the fish is well cleaned take off the fins and tail ; cut it into four or five parts. Lay in a deep dish some lumps of butter, parsley, onions, chopped fine, a little allspice ; then a layer of fish, well seasoned with pepper and salt. Flour it. Continue to do this until the dish is full. Bake an hour. To Broil Carp. Prepare a strong and perfectly clear fire, and warm thoroughly a large and clean gridiron; let the bars be all hot through, and yet not burning hot upon the surface. This is the perfect and fine condition of the gridiron for nice uses ; for if it be hastily heated the bars will be hot enough to scorch the things laid on them on their outside, and yet cold enough inside to chill it. The bars of the gridiron must always keep away so much of the heat as their breadth covers, and, therefore, they should be thoroughly hot when the thing to be dressed is laid upon them. This preparation being made of the fire and the gridiron, let the carp be carefully cleaned, the fins pulled out, and the scales perfectly taken off, then rub it over with a piece of butter, and strew some salt upon it ; lay it on the gridiron, and watch it very carefully that it do thoroughly, and not too quick. To Boil Carp au Court Bouillon. Scale and draw a brace of carp, and pull out the fins. When they are thus cleaned put them into an earthen pan ; set on a quart of vinegar with a pinch of salt in an earthen pipkin. When it is scalding hot pour it on the carp and let them be till cold. Then put on some vinegar in a pan, enough to boil the carp ; put them in and boil them gently till they are dolie enough ; just before they are done throw in half a pint of white wine. The spirit of the vinegar will by that time be evaporated, and the wine will freshen up the liquor and give the carp a richness of taste. At the same time with the wine put in three bay -leaves, a spoonful of white pepper, an onion, and four cloves. Let all boil up a little, that the carp may be thoroughly done and receive their flavor; then take them out, lay them to drain, and send them up in a napkin, garnished with parsley. Carp cooked in this way has as rich a flavor as when stewed in wine.