pepper or cayenne; cover it equally with the finest breadcrumbs; dip it a second time into the egg and crumbs, then pour some clarified butter gently over it, through a small strainer, and send it to a well heated oven for an hour and a quarter or more, should it be very large, but for less time if it be only of moderate size. As it is naturally a very dry fish, it should not be left in the oven after it is thoroughly done, but it should never be sent to table until it is so. The crumbs of bread are sometimes mixed with a sufficient quantity of minced parsley to give the surface of the fish a green hue. Send plain melted butter, and brown caper, or Dutch sauce to table with it.

TO BOIL PERCH.

First wipe or wash off the slime, then scrape off the scales, which adheres rather tenaciously to this fish; empty and clean the insides perfectly, take out the gills, cut off the fins, and lay the perch into equal parts of cold and of boiling water, salted as for mackerel: from eight to ten minutes will boil them unless they are very large. Dish them on a napkin, garnish them with curled parsley, and serve melted butter with them or Mâitre d'Hotel sauce maigre.

Very good French cooks put them at once into boiling water, and keep them over a brisk fire for about fifteen minutes. They dress them also without taking off the scales or fins until they are ready to serve, when they strip the whole of the skin off carefully, and stick the red fins into the middle of the backs; the fish are then covered with the Steward's sauce, thickened with eggs.

In warm water, 8 to 10 minutes, in boiling, 12 to 15.

TO FRY PERCH OR TENCH.

Scale, and clean them perfectly; dry them well, flour and fry them in boiling lard. Serve plenty of fried parsley round them.

TO FRY EELS.

in season all the year, but not so well-conditioned in April and May as in other months.

First kill, then skin, empty, and wash them as clean as possible; cut them into four-inch lengths, and dry them well in a soft cloth. Season them with fine salt, and white pepper, or cayenne, flour them thickly, and fry them a fine brown in boiling lard; drain and dry them as directed for soles, and send

them to table with plain melted butter and a lemon, or the sauce-cruets. Eels are sometimes dipped into batter and then fried; or into egg and fine bread-crumbs (mixed with minced parsley or not, at pleasure), and served with plenty of crisped parsley round, and on them.

It is an improvement for these modes of dressing the fish to open them entirely and remove the bones: the smaller parts should be thrown into the pan a minute or two later than the thicker portions of the bodies or they will not be equally done.

BOILED EELS.

(German Receipt.)

Pare a fine lemon, and strip from it entirely the white inner rind, slice it, and remove the pips with care, put it with a blade of mace, a small half-teaspoonful of white peppercorns, nearly twice as much of salt, and a moderate-sized bunch of parsley, into three pints of cold water, bring them gently to boil, and simmer them for twenty minutes; let them become quite cold, then put in three pounds of eels skinned, and cleaned with great nicety, and cut into lengths of three or four inches; simmer them very softly from ten to fifteen minutes, lift them with a slice into a very hot dish, and serve them with a good Dutch sauce, or with parsley and butter acidulated with lemonjuice, or with Chili vinegar.

EELS.

(Cornish Receipt.)

Skin, empty, and wash as clean as possible, two or three fine eels, cut them into short lengths, and just cover them with cold water; add sufficient salt and cayenne to season them, and stew them very softly indeed from fifteen to twenty minutes, or longer should they require it. When they are nearly done, strew over them a tablespoonful of minced parsley, thicken the sauce with a teaspoonful of flour mixed with a slice of butter, and add a quarter-pint or more of clotted cream. Give the whole a boil, lift the fish into a hot dish, and stir briskly the juice of half a lemon into the sauce; pour it upon the eels, and serve them immediately. Very sweet thick cream is, we think, preferable to clotted cream for this dish. The sauce should be of a good consistence, and a dessertspoonful of flour will be needed for a large dish of the stew, and from one and a half to two ounces of butter. The size of the fish must determine the precise quantity of liquid and of seasoning which they will require.

By substituting pale veal gravy for water, and thin strips of lemon-rind for the parsley, this may be converted into a white fricassee of eels: a flavouring of mace must then be added to it, and the beaten yolks of two or three eggs mixed with a couple of spoonsful of cream, must be stirred into the sauce before the lemon-juice, but it must on no account be allowed to boil afterwards. Rich brown gravy and port wine highly spiced, with acid as above, will give another variety of stewed eels. For this dish the fish are sometimes fried before they are laid into the sauce.

TO BOIL LOBSTERS.

In season from April to October.

Choose them by the directions which we have already given at the commencement of this chapter, and throw them into plenty of fast-boiling salt and water, that life may be destroyed in an instant. A moderate-sized lobster will be done in from fifteen to twenty-five minutes; a large one in from half an hour to forty minutes before they are sent to table, the large claws should be taken off, and the shells cracked across the joints without disfiguring them; the tail should be separated from the body and split quite through the middle; the whole neatly dished upon a napkin, and garnished with curled parsley or not, at choice. A good remoulade, or any other sauce of the kind, that may be preferred, should be sent to table with it; or oil and Chili vinegar, when better liked.

To 1 gallon water 5 ozs. salt. Moderate-sized lobster, 15 to 25 minutes. Large lobster, 30 to 40 minutes.

LOBSTER FRICASSEED, OR AU BÉCHAMEL. (ENTRÉE.) Take the flesh from the claws and tails of two moderate-sized lobsters, cut it into small thick slices or dice; heat it slowly quite through in about three quarters of a pint of good white sauce or béchamel; and serve it when it is at the point of boiling, after having stirred briskly to it a little lemon-juice, just as it is taken from the fire. The coral, pounded and mixed gradually with a few spoonsful of the sauce, should be added previously. Good shin of beef stock, made without vegetables (see page 34), and somewhat reduced by quick boiling, if mixed with an equal proportion of cream, and thickened with arrow-root, will answer extremely well, in a general way, for this dish, which is most excellent, if well made. The sauce should never be thin; nor more than sufficient in quantity to just cover the fish. For a second course dish only as much must be used as will adhere to

the fish, which after being heated should be laid evenly into the shells after they have been split quite through the centre of the backs in their entire length, without being broken or divided at the joint, and nicely cleaned. When thus arranged, the lobster may be thickly covered with well-dried, fine, pale, fried crumbs of bread; or with unfried ones, which must then be equally moistened with clarified butter, and browned with a salamander. A small quantity of salt, mace, and cayenne, may be required to finish the flavouring of either of these preparations.

BUTTERED CRAB, OR LOBSTER.

In season during the same time as Lobsters.

Slice quite small, or pull into light flakes with a couple of forks, the flesh of either fish; put it into a saucepan with a few bits of good butter lightly rolled in flour, and heat it slowly over a gentle fire; then pour over and mix thoroughly with it, from one to two teaspoonsful of made-mustard smoothly blended with a tablespoonful or more of common or of Chili vinegar: if with the former, add to it a tolerable seasoning of cayenne. Grate in a little nutmeg, and when the whole is well heated serve it immediately either in the shell of the crab or lobster, or in scollop-shells, and serve it plain, or with bread-crumbs over, as in the preceding receipt. A spoonful or so of good meat jelly is, we think, a great improvement to this dish, for which an ounce and a half of butter will be quite sufficient.

Crabs are boiled like lobsters.

TO BOIL CRAYFISH.

Throw them into water salted as for lobsters, and when they have boiled a quarter of an hour, take them up, and drain them well.

15 minutes.

TO BOIL PRAWNS.

Let them have plenty of water salted as for shrimps, put them in when it is boiling fast, clear off all the scum as it rises, and in from six to eight minutes turn them into a cullender or sieve, and drain them well. Spread them on a large dish or on a soft cloth to cool, and when they are quite cold, dress them upon a very white napkin neatly arranged upon a saucer or small basin reversed in a dish. Garnish the base with curled parsley, and send the prawns to table. They should always be kept in a very cool place until they are served.

6 to 8 minutes.

TO BOIL SHRIMPS.

Pick out the large ones, and let the smaller be thrown back into the sea. Have ready boiling plenty of water, add salt in the proportion of from five to six ounces to the gallon, take off the scum, put in the shrimps, and in four or five minutes they will be done. Pour them into a cullender to drain, then spread them on a soft cloth to cool; or, dish them directly on a napkin and send them hot to table.

4 to 5 minutes.

Obs.-Ready-dressed shrimps or prawns may be preserved fit for eating at least twelve hours longer than they would otherwise keep, by throwing them for an instant into boiling salt and water when they first begin to loose their freshness, and then draining them as above.

CROUTE AUX CREVETTES, OR SHRIMP-TOAST.

Shell two quarts of fine fresh shrimps, bruise the heads, and boil them in a pint and a half of water for half an hour; then strain the liquor through a muslin, or very fine sieve. Set two ounces of butter over the fire in a saucepan, and when it begins to simmer, stir in a teaspoonful of flour, a quarter-spoonful of mace in powder, some cayenne, and a little grated nutmeg, and shake the whole often until the flour begins to brown; then pour in by degrees the liquor in which the heads were stewed, and when the sauce boils, add the shrimps; as soon as they are quite hot through, pour them into a toast made of the bottom crust of a loaf cut more than an inch thick, slightly hollowed in the inside, and fried in fresh butter a light brown. Vealbroth is a good substitute for the liquor made of the heads, which has rather a peculiar flavour. A few drops of essence of anchovies are considered by many persons an improvement to it. A glass of sherry, and a little lemon-juice, are also sometimes. added to the above: the beaten yolks of two or three eggs stirred in just as it is taken from the fire, will be found a good addition to it.

SHRIMP-TOAST A LA REINE.

Substitute three quarters of a pint of veal-gravy for the shrimp-liquor of the preceding receipt; boil in it for ten minutes the rind of a very small lemon cut extremely thin, put the same proportion of butter, flour, and spice, as for the Croute aux Crevettes, but pour the gravy to them before the roux begins to brown. Have ready-boiling, a quarter-pint of rich cream,