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Fresh Codfish, Haddock, Halibut or Salmon
4 Cupfuls Flaked, Cooked Fish 1 Tablespoonful Snowdrift 1 Tablespoonful Flour 4 Hard-cooked Eggs 1/2 Teaspoonful Salt ⅛ Teaspoonful Pepper 1 Tablespoonful Finelyminced Onion 1 Cupful Milk If a salt or smoked fish is used, it should first be scalded with hot water and flaked.
If fresh fish is used, it should first be boiled. If canned fish is chosen, it should be scalded.
Make a white sauce of the Snowdrift, flour, the seasonings, onion and milk, and stir in the fish. Lightly rub a baking-dish with Snowdrift, put in a layer of this mixture, then sprinkle on a layer of sliced, hard-cooked eggs, continuing in this way until all has been used. Cover the top with three-fourths cupful of bread crumbs, mixed with one and a half tablespoonfuls of melted Snowdrift, and bake in a moderate oven, 350 degrees F., for about thirtyfive minutes.
A scalloped fish casserole from a shortening manufacturer's promotional book. The ingredient list is compact and one measurement has been garbled in transcription, so read the whole method before starting.
- SnowdriftA cottonseed-oil shortening sold by the Southern Cotton Oil Company. Any solid vegetable shortening works; butter is better here, since the sauce and crumb topping both benefit from the flavour.
- The pepper measureThe printed page gives an eighth of a teaspoonful of pepper, as our text now reads. Season the sauce to taste all the same.
- Sauce quantityOne tablespoon each of fat and flour to one cup of milk gives a thin white sauce, and four cups of flaked fish will drink it up. Doubling the sauce (2 Tbsp fat, 2 Tbsp flour, 1 1/2 to 2 cups milk) gives a dish that is moist rather than dry and crumbly.
- Cooking the fish firstThe fish goes in already cooked, so poach fillets gently in barely simmering salted water or milk just until they flake, 6 to 10 minutes depending on thickness. Overcooked at this stage, they will be dry after 35 minutes in the oven.
- Salt codScalding alone will not desalt heavily salted cod. Soak it 24 to 48 hours in the refrigerator with several changes of water, then poach, then flake. Taste before adding the half teaspoon of salt to the sauce.
- OvenThe original already gives 350F, which is right. Thirty-five minutes brings the dish through and browns the crumbs; if the top pales, finish under the broiler for a minute.
- YieldFour cups of fish plus sauce and eggs should roughly fill a 2-quart dish; expect about six main-course servings.
This comes from a manufacturer's cookbook built to sell Snowdrift, the cottonseed-oil shortening marketed by the Southern Cotton Oil Company from the early 1900s — hence the brand name appearing four times in a recipe that needs only a spoonful or two of fat. Cottonseed oil was a byproduct of the Southern cotton crop that food processors turned into a cheap substitute for lard, and free recipe booklets were the standard way of teaching cooks to reach for it. The dish itself is the plain scalloped fish of the American household repertoire: cooked fish, a flour-thickened white sauce, sliced hard-cooked eggs and a buttered crumb top, a formula that stretched leftover or salted fish into a supper and is often associated with Friday and Lenten menus. The recipe accommodates salt, smoked, fresh or canned fish alike.