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WHITING (au Gratin)

Butter a baking-dish, and sprinkle over it some grated bread-crumbs and a little pepper and salt. Moisten these with a glass of white wine, and add a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup and a tea-spoonful of anchovy. Place the whiting in the dish, and strew all about it two tea-spoonfuls of finely-chopped mushrooms, and one of parsiey and shallot. Cover the surface of the fish with brown bread-crumbs, and put it in the oven till it is done enough. Take it up carefully with a fish-slicer, put it on a dish, and serve with the sauce poured over it. If not sufficiently browned, a salamander or red-hot shovel may be held over it for a minute or two. Sometimes the fish is filleted when prepared in this way. Time to bake the fish, half an hour. Probable cost of whiting, 4d. to 8d. each. Sufficient, one for each person. WHITING (au Gratin), another way.

Take two full-sized whiting, empty, scrape, cleanse, and wipe them, them make deep incisions on each side with a sharp knife to the depth of a quarter of an inch. Butter a shallow dish thickly; sprinkle upon it a little pepper and salt and two table-spoonfuls of fine bread-raspings. Put in the whiting, sprinkle these with pepper and salt, pour gently over them one to two glassfuls of French light wine, and lay upon the fish two table-spoonfuls of finely-minced mushrooms mixed with a table-spoonful of parsley. Melt an ounce of butter, pour it over the fish, sprinkle two table-spoonfuls of bread-raspings on the top, and bake the whiting in the oven. Send a cut lemon only to table with the fish. If it is preferred that the wine should not be used, three or four table-spoonfuls of pale veal gravy may be substituted for it. Time to bake the whiting, fifteen to twenty minutes. Probable cost, 4d. to 8d. each. Sufficient for two or three persons.

WHITING (au Gratin), another way.

After having scaled, emptied, and washed the whiting, wipe them clean. Preserve the livers. Take a fire-proof dish, rub the bottom over with butter, and sprinkle it with parsley and mushrooms chopped very fine, over which lay the whiting. Then take some bread-raspings that are not burnt, and sprinkle them over the whiting, with pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg; then again dust the fish over with sweet herbs, namely, parsley and mushrooms, chopped very fine. (If shallots are approved of, you may add some.) Next lay small lumps of butter on the whiting; pour into the dish a glassful or two of white wine, a tea-spoonful of each of the following articles--essence of anchovies, cavice, chilli vinegar, Harvey's sauce, etc.--and bake in a hot oven. The whiting will be done within a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, according to size. Serve in the dish in which they are cooked, with slices of lemon.