Fish: Salmon
It is digestible food, which is not overstimulating or overnutritive. Both the poet and preacher will do better work on a dinner of broiled bluefish than on rare roast beef. Salmon, mackerel, and eels, which are exceedingly oily, are an exception to the digestible rule. They should be severely let alone by people of weak stomachs, while white fish may be classed as the most digestible of all fish.
The shimmering array on the market stall is alluring and confusing, and stall is alluring and confusing, and the fish dealer is apt to be persuasive. economy to be inveigled into buying a 5pound bluefish when 2 pounds of halibut would have fed your family. Fish left over can be utilized nicely in many ways, but it is better not to have any; in sumfish has not remarkable keeping qualities. Decide when you order a fish how you will cook it.
The fish dealer can prepare it for planking or broiling better than you can. The cheapest fish is not always the most economical. Five pounds of cod contains about 2 pounds of waste in the shape of skin, head, tail, and bone, while 2 pounds of halibut is solid fish with scarcely an ounce of waste The cooking of fish depends largely on taste, for various methods apon taste, for various methods apply frequently and most appetizingly to the same fish. Take halibut, for instance.
It may be baked, broiled, fried or boiled, and be quite as delicious in one way as another. This rule is also true of cod, haddock, and nearly every kind of white-fleshed fish. What a cook or a fish dealer calls oily fish-this class contains bluefish , mackerel, herring, salmon, eels, and shadare best suited for broiling, baking, or planking. They much oil distributed through the flesh that it requires a dry, intense heat to make them palatable.
Salmon is an exception to this rule, being at its best when boiled. boiled. An old saying declares, contain SO "Small fish should swim twice-once in water, once in oil." It is a good for the cook to remember, because it applies well to every tiny fish; smelts brook trout, perch, catfish, sunfish, bullheads, and everything in small finny things.
Sometimes these small fish sautéd, but they are not so good nor oil." so wholesome as when they "swim in are The fish which plank to perfection are shad, whitefish, mackerel, blueshad, whitefish, mackerel, bluefish, red snapper, and pompano.
There are a number of real advantages to this method of cooking; it is so easy, it may be done in the hot oven of any coal or gas stove, the wood imparts a flavor to the fish, which can be obtained in no other way. Then there is no difficult task of sliding it from a broiler or bake pan to the platter, because it is the proper thing to send the plank straight to the table laid on a folded towel . If you have to prepare a fish for planking , remember it must be cut down the back instead of the stomach, the thin portion of the flesh being folded on the middle of the plank a Improvise a fish kettle if you haven't one . Line wire basket with a napkin, allowing the linen to coiling it slightly if it is large, and fall over the edges, put in the fish , drop the basket in a kettle of boiling water. This is an easier method for lifting it out whole than if set right in the kettle.
An oily fish, such as mackerel or bluefish, needs no enrichment of fat does. If it is cut in steaks, dip it before before broiling; a white-fleshed fish in oil or melted butter and a good put between the wires of the broiler. seasoning of pepper and salt, then Lay the thickest end in the center of the broiler over the hottest part of the fire, skin side up. Let it get perfectly crisp and brown on the flesh side before turning. Broil the skin side carefully; it is apt to burn.
Set it in a hot oven for five minutes to thoroughly finish cooking.
FISH Fish of all sorts requires the accompaniment of a starch food to make a well-balanced meal; it may be bread, rice, potatoes, or macaroni.
An iron fish sheet, with rings at each end for handles, may be made by any tinsmith for twenty-five cents.
Grease it well before setting the fish to cook and lay under it strips of salt pork, then set in a baking pan.
You will find it easy to slip a baked fish from this sheet on a platter.
When baking halibut, pour milk over and around it before setting in the oven. It keeps the fish moist, improves the flavor, and makes it brown more thoroughly.
In spite of careful watching, a fish will occasionally break in the boiling. Do not try to patch it together into an unsightly heap of skin, bones, and meat. Flake it quickly and lay in good-sized portions on a large platter. Garnish with roses of mashed potatoes squeezed from a pastry bag, and over the fish pour a This transforms an almost sauce.
Bass...
Bluefish.
Butterfish.
Cod..
Eels........
Flounder...
Haddock.
Halibut...
Herring.......
Kingfish Blackfish..
Mackerel, Perch...
Pickerel..
Pompano...
Red Snapper......
Salmon......
Shad......
Sheepshead.
Smelts..
Trout..
Turbot...
Muskellunge...
Whitefish Sturgeon.........
Carp...
Scrod.
Swordfish..
Mullet.
Pike... hopeless failure into a most attractive dish.
The same general rules for various methods of cooking fish apply to all kinds; they may be boiled, fried, sautéd, planked, broiled, or baked.
Of course, after cooking by any process, a dish may be varied by one of the sauces which are to be found in a following chapter.
For highly flavored fish, such as shad or salmon, use the simplest sauce; drawn butter or egg sauce is much more appetizing than a rich herb-seasoned, stock sauce, which is apt to destroy the fine flavor of fish.
There are certain fresh-water fish, as well as several white-fleshed varieties, cod, halibut, and haddock, for instance, that are improved by a certain amount of seasoning, only it must be done very carefully and with an educated palate as criterion.
The following methods for cooking fish can be applied to anything that swims, though the table appended will serve as a guide:
METHODS FOR COOKING FISH ..... .. ... ... ........。 Whitebait.
Porgies.
Catfish. • May be baked, boiled, or broiled.
May be planked, baked, or broiled.
May be fried or sautéd.
May be boiled, broiled, or baked.
May be fried or broiled.
May be baked, fried, or sautéd.
May be baked, broiled, planked, or boiled.
May be baked, boiled, fried, broiled, or planked.
May be baked or broiled.
May be broiled.
May be baked or broiled.
May be baked, broiled, or planked.
May be fried or broiled. . May be baked.
May be broiled.
May be fried or boiled.
May be boiled, broiled, or baked.
May be broiled, baked, or planked.
May be boiled or baked.
May be sautéd, baked, or fried.
May be baked, broiled, or sautéd.
May be baked.
May be boiled.
May be planked, baked, or broiled.
May be roasted, broiled, baked after being parboiled. May be boiled or baked.
May be broiled.
May be baked, broiled boiled.
May be baked. . May be boiled.
May be fried.
May be planked, broiled, or baked.
May be fried.
Alewives May be baked.
MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK How to Plank Fish.