To Broil a Shad

Ingredients

• The fish is split so as not to come in two
• Sprinkle the fish plentifully with pepper and salt

Method

1. 1

   Split the fish and lay it flat on a greased gridiron.

2. 2

   Broil and serve with melted butter and garnished with parsley.

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- vinegar. If the fish is thick through and weighs as much as ten pounds, allow it an hour in which to boil, after the water becomes hot; but if it is thin through and small it will be enough to allow it five minutes for every pound of fish. To test whether it is done thrust a knife as close to the backbone as you can, and if the flesh parts from it readily the fish has boiled long enough, and must be dished without delay. Send it to table in a large, flat dish, wrapped in a folded napkin. Garnish the dish with scraped horseradish. Prepare a nice boat of butter sauce, and have ready Worcestershire Sauce, and catsups of sev- eral sorts, and made mustard in the castors, to be used as the taste of different persons may direct. To Bakb a Shad. Choose the very finest for this purpose, and, besides the usual cleaning, remove the backbone, if the fish be male, and roe, if it be female ; in the cavities thus formed insert a rich stuffing of bread-crumbs, seasoned exactly as if you were preparing to roast poultry. As at the season for shad eggs are also plentiful, it will improve this stuffing to add to it one or two raw eggs beaten light, and in- corporated with the other things. When the fish is well stuffed cover it all over on top with grated bread-crumbs, glazed with some of the egg kept out on purpose ; place 63 VIRGINIA COOKERT'BOOK. it at fall length in a baking -pan containing about a pint of water; baste it with batter from time to time, and let it bake gently till done through. Broil the roe, and serve it in a small dish separately, but placed con- veniently, so that each person at table may be helped to a bit. Unless where persons are fond of very rich food, no gravy is needed with baked shad. If called for, though, prepare some out of the juice left in the pan where the fish was baked, adding a little water, and thickening with butter and browned flour. Serve in the usual gravy-boat. To Fry a Shad. Clean the fish as directed above ; split it, and cut into pieces of a size to be laid upon a person's plate ; after cleaning, drain and wipe dry ; then flour each piece on both sides ; drop them into a pan, with plenty of boiling lard ; drain again as soon as the fish is done brown, and serve on a hot dish. Butter sauce, mustard, and catsups are the condiments needed with it at table, besides salt, of course. To Bboil a Shad. The fish is split so as not to come in two, but in order that it may be spread out and made to lie flat on the gridiron, which must be previously greased and heated. Sprinkle the fish plentifully with pepper and salt

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