Fish à la Crème ( Mrs. Audenreid ).
Boil a fish weighing four pounds in salted water. When done, remove the skin, and flake it, leaving out the bones. Boil one quart of rich milk. Mix butter size of a small egg with three table-spoonfuls of flour, and stir it smoothly in the milk, adding also two or three sprigs of parsley and half an onion chopped fine, a little Cayenne pepper, and salt. Stir it over the fire until it has thickened.
Butter a gratin dish. Put in first a layer of fish, then of dressing, and continue in alternation until all the fish is used, with dressing on top. Sprinkle sifted bread-crumbs over the top. Bake half an hour. Garnish with parsley and slices of hard-boiled egg.
As the rules for boiling, broiling, frying, cooking au gratin, and stewing are the same for nearly all kinds of fish, I will not repeat the receipts for each particular one. I will only suggest the best manner for cooking certain kinds, and will add certain receipts not under the general rule:
SALMON
is undoubtedly best boiled. The only exception to the rule of boiling fish is in the case of salmon, which must be put in hot instead of cold water, to preserve its color. A favorite way of boiling a whole salmon is in the form of a letter S, as in plate. It is done as follows: Thread a trussing-needle with some twine; tie the end of the string around the head, fastening it tight; then pass the needle through the centre part of the body, draw the string tight, and fasten it around the tail. The fish will assume the desired form.
For parties or evening companies, salmon boiled in this form (middle cuts are also used), served cold, with a Mayonnaise sauce poured over, is a favorite dish. It is then generally mounted in style, on an oval or square block pedestal, three or four inches high, made of bread (two or three days old), called a croustade, carved in any form with a sharp knife. It is then fried a light-brown in boiling lard. Oftener these croustades are made of wood, which are covered with white paper, and brushed over with a little half-set aspic jelly. The salmon is then decorated with squares of aspic jelly. A decoration of quartered hard-boiled eggs or of cold cauliflower-blossoms is very pretty, and is palatable also with the Mayonnaise sauce. The best sauces for a boiled salmon served hot are the sauce Hollandaise, lobster, shrimp, or oyster sauces—the sauce Hollandaise being the favorite.
If lobster sauce is used, the coral of the lobster is dried, and sprinkled over the fish, reserving some with which to color the sauce, as in receipt for lobster sauce (see page 122).
If shrimp sauce is used, some whole shrimps should be saved for decorating the dish.
In decorating salmon, as well as any other kind of fish, potatoes cut in little balls, and placed like little piles of cannon-balls around the dish, are pretty. The potatoes should be simply boiled in salted water. An alternate pile of button mushrooms are pretty, and good also. Parsley or any pretty leaves around a dish always give a fresh and tasteful appearance. Or,
An exceedingly pretty garnish for a large fish is one of smelts (in rings, see receipt, page 111) fried in boiling lard. In this case, add slices of lemon. Still another pretty garnish is of fried oysters or fried parsley, or both.
It is quite appropriate to serve a middle cut of salmon at a dinner: 1st, because it is the best cut; 2d, because it is easier and cheaper to serve; and, 3d, because one never cares to supply more than is necessary. This cut is better slowly boiled, also, in the acidulated salted water.