The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory;

Into an earthen pan put Jamaica and common pepper, pounded fine, and salt; mix them and strew some at the bottom of the pan; cut your eels and lay them over it, and strew a little more seasoning over them. Then put in another layer of eels, repeating this process till all the eels are in. Lay a few bay leaves upon them, and pour as much vinegar as you may think requisite; cover the pan with brown paper and bake them. Pour off the liquor, cover them with clarified butter, and lay them by for use.

Eels, to pickle

Drain, wash, and well cleanse your eels, and cut off the heads. Cut them in lengths of four or five inches, with their skins on; stew in them some pepper and salt, and broil them on a gridiron a fine colour: then put them in layers in a jar, with bay-leaf, pepper, salt, a few slices of lemon, and a few cloves. Pour some good vinegar on them; tie strong paper over, and prick a few holes in it. It is better to boil the seasoning with some sweet herbs in the vinegar, and let it stand to be cold before it is put over the eels. Two yolks of eggs boiled hard should be put in the vinegar with a tea-spoonful of flour of mustard. Two yolks are sufficient for twelve pounds of eels.

Eels, to roast

Skin your eels; turn, scotch, and wash them with melted butter; skewer them crosswise; fix them on the spit, and put over them a little pepper, salt, parsley, and thyme; roast them quick. Fry some parsley, and lay it round the dish; make your sauce of butter and gravy.

Eels, to spitchcock

Leave the skin on the eels; scour them with salt; wash them; cut off their heads and slit them on the belly side; take out the bone and guts. Wash and wipe them well; cut them in pieces three inches long, and wipe them quite dry. Put two ounces of butter, with a little minced parsley, thyme, sage, pepper and salt, and a little chopped shalot, in a stewpan; when the butter is melted, stir the ingredients together, and take the pan off the fire; mix the yolks of two eggs with them and dip the eels in, a piece at a time; then roll them in bread crumbs, making as much stick on as you can. Rub the gridiron with a bit of suet; set it over a clear fire, and broil your eels of a fine crisp brown; dust them with crisp parsley. Sauce, anchovy and butter, or plain butter in a boat.

Another way

Wash your eels well in their skins with salt and water; dry and slit them; take out the back-bone, and slash them: season them with chopped parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper. Clean the inside with melted butter; cut them into pieces about three inches long and broil them; make the sauce with butter and orange juice.

Eels, to stew

Take five pounds of middling shafflings, cut off their heads, skin, and cut them in pieces as long as your finger. Wash them in several waters; dry them well with a cloth, lay them in a pan, sprinkle over them half an ounce of white salt, and let them lie an hour. Lay them in a stewpan, and add half a pint of French white wine, a quarter of a pint of water, two cloves beaten, a blade of mace, a large onion peeled, and the rind of a lemon; stew all these gently half an hour: then take the eels out of the liquor, skim off all the fat, and flour the eels all over; put to the liquor in which they were stewed an anchovy, washed and boned, and mix sorrel and parsley, half a handful of each, and half a pound of fresh butter. Let it just boil up; put in the eels; when they boil, lay them on sippets in your dish, and send them up hot to table.

Another way

Cover the fish close in a stewpan with a piece of butter as big as a walnut rolled in flour, and let it stew till done enough, which you will know by the eels being very tender. Take them up and lay them on a dish; strain your sauce, and give it a quick boil and pour it over the fish. Garnish with lemon.

Fish, to recover when tainted

When fish of any kind is tainted plunge it in cold milk, which will render it sweet again.

Fish, in general, to dress

Take water, salt, half a pint of vinegar, a sprig of thyme, a small onion, and a little lemon peel; boil them all together, then put in your fish, and when done enough take them out, drain them well, and lay them over a stove to keep hot.

If you fry fish, strew some crumbs of grated bread very fine over them, and fry them in sweet oil; then drain them well and keep them hot.

Fish, to dress in Sauce

Cut off the heads, tails, and fins, of two or three haddocks or other small fish; stew them in a quart of water, with a little spice and anchovy, and a bunch of sweet herbs, for a quarter of an hour; and then skim. Roll a bit of butter in flour, and thicken the liquor; put down the fish, and stew them with a little chopped parsley, and cloves, or onions.

Fish hashed in Paste

Cut the fish into dice about three quarters of an inch square; prepare white sauce the same as for fowls, leaving out the mushrooms and truffles; add a little anchovy sauce to give it a good colour, and a pinch of cayenne pepper and salt. When the sauce is done, throw in the dice of fish, and when thoroughly hot serve it.

There should be a little more butter in the sauce than is commonly used in the white sauce for fowls.

Fish, to Cavietch

Cut the fish into slices, season them with pepper and salt, and let them lie for an hour; dry them well with a cloth, flour and fry them brown in oil: boil a quantity of vinegar proportionate to that of the fish to be prepared: cover the fish with slices of garlic and some whole pepper and mace; add the same quantity of oil as vinegar, mix them well together, and salt to your taste. When the fish and liquor are quite cold, slice onions and lay at the bottom of the pan; then put a layer of fish, and so on, till the whole is in. The liquor must be cold before it is poured on the fish.

Gudgeon

Dress as you would smelts.

Haddocks, to bake

Bone two or three haddocks, and lay them in a deep pan with pepper, salt, butter and flour, and two or three anchovies, and sufficient water to cover them. Cover the pan close for an hour, which is required to bake them, and serve them in the saucepan.

Haddock baked

Let the inside of the gills be drawn out and washed clean; fill with bread crumbs, parsley, sweet herbs chopped, nutmeg, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, and grated lemon-peel; skewer the tail into the mouth, and rub it well with yolk of egg. Strew over bread crumbs, and stick on bits of butter. Bake the fish in a common oven, putting into the dish a little white wine and water, a bit of mace, and lemon-peel. Serve up with oyster sauce, white fish sauce, or anchovy sauce; but put to the sauce what gravy is in the dish, first skimming it.

Haddock Pudding

Skin the fish; take out all the bones, and cut it in thin slices. Butter the mould well, and throw round it the spawn of a lobster, before it is boiled. Put alternate slices of haddock and lobster in the mould, and season to your taste. Beat up half a pint of cream or more, according to the size of the mould, with three eggs, and pour on it: tie a cloth over, and boil it an hour. Stew oysters to go in the dish. Garnish with pastry.

Herring

The following is a Swedish dish: Take salted herring, some cold veal, an apple, and an onion, mince them all fine, and mix them well together with oil and vinegar.

Lampreys, to pot

Well cleanse your lampreys in the following manner: the intestines and the pipe which nature has given them instead of a bone must be taken clear away, by opening them down the belly from head to tail. They must then be rubbed with wood-ashes, to remove the slime. Then rub with salt, and wash them in three or four waters. Let them be quite free from water before you proceed to season them thus: – take, according to the quantity you intend to pot, allspice ground with an equal quantity of black pepper, a little mace, cayenne pepper, salt, about the same quantity as that of all the other seasoning; mix these well together, and rub your lampreys inside and out. Put them into an earthen pan or a well-tinned copper stewpan, with some good butter under and over, sufficient to cover them, when dissolved. Put in with them a few bay-leaves and the peel of a lemon. Let them bake slowly till they are quite done; then strain off the butter, and let them lie on the back of a sieve till nearly cold. Then place them in pots of suitable size, taking great care to rub the seasoning well over them as you lay them in; because the seasoning is apt to get from the fish when you drain them. Carefully separate the butter which you have strained from the gravy; clarify it, and, when almost cold, pour it into your pots so as to cover your fish completely. If you have not sufficient butter for this purpose you must clarify more, as the fish must be entirely hid from sight. They are fit for use the next day.

Great care must be taken to put them into the pots quite free from the gravy or moisture which they produce.

Another way

Skin your fish, cleanse them with salt, and wipe them dry. Beat some black pepper, mace, and cloves; mix them with salt, and season your fish with it. Put them in a pan; cover with clarified butter; bake them an hour and season them well; remove the butter after they are baked; take them out of their gravy, and lay them on a coarse cloth to drain. When quite cold, season them again with the same seasoning. Lay them close in the pot; cover them completely with clarified butter; and if your butter is good, they will keep a long time.

Lobsters, to butter

Put by the tails whole, to be laid in the middle of the dish; cut the meat into large pieces; put in a large piece of butter, and two spoonfuls of Rhenish wine; squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and serve it up.

Lobster Fricassee

Cut the meat of a lobster into dice; put it in a stewpan with a little veal gravy; let it stew for ten minutes. A little before you send it to table beat up the yolk of an egg in cream: put it to your lobster, stirring it till it simmers. Pepper and salt to your taste. Dish it up very hot, and garnish with lemon.

Lobsters, to hash

Take the meat out of a boiled lobster as whole as you can. Break all the shells; to these and the remains of the body, the large claws excepted, as they have no goodness in them, put some water, cayenne pepper, salt, and common pepper. Let them stew together till the liquor has a good flavour of the lobster, but observe that there must be very little water, and add two teaspoonfuls of anchovy pickle. Strain through a common sieve; put the meat of the lobster to the gravy; add some good rich melted butter, and send to table. Lobster sauce is made in the same way, only the meat should be cut smaller than for hashing. Hen lobsters are best.

Lobsters, to pot

Boil four moderate-sized lobsters, take off the tails, and split them. Take out the flesh as whole as possible; pick the meat out of the body and chine; beat it fine, and season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and mace, and season separately, in the same manner, the tails and claws, which must also be taken out as whole as you can. Clarify a pound of the very finest butter; skim it clean; put in the tails and claws, with what you have beaten, and let it boil a very short time, stirring it all the while lest it should turn. Let it drain through a sieve, but not too much; put it down close in a pot, and, when it is a little cooled, pour over the butter which you drained from it. When quite cold, tie it down. The butter should be the very best, as it mixes with the lobster spawn, &c., and is excellent to eat with the rest or spread upon bread.

Lobsters, to stew

Half boil two fine lobsters; break the claws and take out the meat as whole as you can; cut the tails in two, and take out the meat; put them in a stewpan, with half a pint of gravy, a gill of white wine, a little beaten mace, cayenne pepper, salt, a spoonful of ketchup, a little anchovy liquor, and a little butter rolled in flour. Cover and stew them gently for twenty minutes. Shake the pan round frequently to prevent the contents from sticking; squeeze in a little lemon. Cut the chines in four; pepper, salt, and broil them. Put the meat and sauce in a dish, and the chines round for garnish.