Baked Fish

Ingredients

• Carefully clean and wipe the fish
• enough hot water to prevent scorching
• basting often with butter
• a cup of sweet cream or rich milk
• a few spoons of hot water
• two large spoons of melted butter
• a teaspoon of chopped parsley

Method

1. 1

   Carefully clean and wipe the fish, lay it in a dripping-pan with enough hot water to prevent scorching.

2. 2

   Bake slowly, basting often with butter and water.

3. 3

   Prepare a sauce with sweet cream, hot water, melted butter, and chopped parsley.

4. 4

   Pour over the fish when done.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Original White House Cookbook (1887) by Hugo Ziemann, F. L. Gillette, Hugo Zimmerman, mrs gillette, page 25. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Bake fish slowly, basting often with butter and water. Salmon is considered the most nutritious of all fish. When boiling fish, by adding a little vinegar and salt to the water, it seasons and prevents the nutriment from being drawn out ; the vinegar acting on the water hardens the water. Fill the fish with a nicely prepared stuflBng of rolled cracker or stale bread crumbs, seasoned with butter, pepper, salt, sage and any other aromatic herbs fancied; sew up; wrap in a well-floured cloth, tied closely with twine, and boil or steam. The garnishes for boiled fish are: for tur- bot, fried smelts; for other boiled fish, parsley, sliced beets, lemon or sliced boiled egg. Do not use the knives, spoons, etc., that are used in cooking fish, for other food, or they will be apt to impart a fishy flavor. Fish to be boiled should be put into cold water and set on the fire to cook very gently, or the outside will break before the inner part is done. Unless the fish are small, they should never be put into warm water; nor should water, either hot or cold, be poured on to the fish, as it is liable to break the skin; if it should be necessary to add a little water while the fish is cooking, it ought to be poured in gently at the side of the vessel. Fish to be broiled should lie, after they are dressed, for two or three hours, with their inside well sprinkled with salt and pepper. Salt fish should be soaked in water before boiling, according to the time it has been in salt. When it is hard and dry, it will require thirty- six hours soaking before it is dressed, and the water must be changed three or four times. When fish is not very salt, twenty-four hours, or even one night, will suffice. When frying fish the fire must be hot. enough to bring the fat to such a degree of heat as to sear the surface and make it impervious to the fat, and at the same time seal up the rich juices. As soon as the fish is browned by this sudden application of heat, the pan may be moved to a cooler place on the stove, that the process may be finished more slowly. Fat in which fish has been fried is just as good to use again for the same purpose, but it should be kept by itself and not be put to any other use. TO FRY FISH. Most of the smaller fish (generally termed pan-fish) are usually fried. Clean well, cut off the head, and, if quite large, cut out the backbone, and 4 50 Fisir. slice the body crosswise into five or six pieces; season with salt and pepper. Dip in Indian meal or wheat flour, or in beaten egg, and roll in bread or fine cracker crumbs — trout and perch should not be dipped in meal; put into a thick bottomed iron frying pan, the flesh side down, with hot lard or drippings; fry slowly, turning when lightly browned. The following method may be deemed preferable: Dredge the pieces with flour; brush them over with beaten egg; roll in bread crumbs, and fry in hot lard or drippings suflBcient to cover, the same as frying crullers. If the fat is very hot, the flsh will fry without absorbing it, and it will be palatably cooked. When browned on one side, turn it over in the fat and brown the other, draining when done. This is a particularly good way to fry slices of large fish. Serve with tomato sauce; garnish with slices of lemon. PAN-FISH. Place them in a thick bottomed frying pan with heads all one way. Fill the spaces with smaller fish. When they are fried quite brown and ready to turn, put a dinner plate over them, drain off the fat; then invert the pan, and they will be left unbroken on the plate. Put the lard back into the pan, and when hot slip back the fish. When the other side is brown, drain, turn on a plate as before, and slip them on a warm platter, to be sent to the table. Leaving the heads on and the fish a crispy-brown, in perfect shape, improves the appearance if not the flavor. Garnish with slices of lemon. Hotel Lafayette, Philadelphia. BAKED FIGKEBEL. Carefully clean and wipe the fish, and lay in a dripping-pan with enough hot water to prevent scorching. A perforated sheet of tin, fitting loosely, or several mufiSn rings may be used to keep it off the bottom. Lay it in a circle on its belly, head and tail touching, and tied, or as directed in note on fish; bake slowly, basting often with butter and water. When done, have ready a cup of sweet cream or rich milk to which a few spoons of hot water has been added; stir in two large spoons of melted butter and a little chopped parsley; heat all by setting the cup in boiling water; add the gravy from the dripping-pan, and let it boil up once; place the fish in a hot dish and pour over it the sauce. Or an egg sauce may be made with drawn butter; stir in the yolk of an egg quickly, and then a teaspoon of chopped parsley

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.