To Boil a Shad

Ingredients

• Select a fine, fat specimen
• a table-spoonful of salt
• a gill of cider-vinegar

Method

1. 1

   Clean the fish, put it into a kettle with cold water seasoned with salt and vinegar.

2. 2

   Boil according to the thickness of the fish, testing for doneness by checking if the flesh parts from the backbone.

3. 3

   Serve garnished with scraped horseradish.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 33. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

To Boil a Shad. Select a fine, fat specimen (a poor shad being miserable food) — one filled with roe is the choicest. Every well- appointed kitchen should have a regular fish-kettle, such as is supplied with a perforated tin shelf inside, with handles, so that the fish can be lifted from the kettle and laid upon the dish without being broken by handling. If, however, you have not such a convenience, boil your VIRGINIA COOKERT-BOOK. 61 fish in a cloth, laid on an ordinary plate, and, by taking hold of the ends of the cloth, you can manage the fish pretty well, though it be a large one. After cleaning your fish well — that is to say, scraping off the scales, which must be first loosened by having a little hot water poured over them, removing the gills, cut- ting off the fins and the hard, white part running along the backbone — put it into your kettle in cold water, sea- soned with a table-spoonful of salt and a gill of cider- vinega

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