A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes

thyme, pepper, and salt, and boil the soup for about fifteen minutes longer, when it will be ready for dinner. Some well-boiled potatoes will prove a welcome addition to this soup. _Note._--This kind of fish soup will prove the more advantageous near the sea-coast, where inferior kinds of fish are always very cheap. No. 119. SOUSED MACKEREL. When mackerel are to be bought at six for a shilling, this kind of fish forms a cheap dinner. On such occasions, the mackerel must be placed heads and tails in an earthen dish or pan, seasoned with chopped onions, black pepper, a pinch of allspice, and salt; add sufficient vinegar and water in equal proportions to cover the fish. Bake in your own oven, if you possess one, or send them to the baker's. _Note._--Herrings, sprats, or any other cheap fish, are soused in the same manner. No. 120. A DINNER OF RED HERRINGS. The cheaper sort of red herrings are always too salty, and unpleasantly strong-flavoured, and are therefore an indifferent kind of food, unless due precaution is taken to soak them in water for an hour before they are cooked. First, soak the red herrings in water for an hour; wipe, and split them down the back; toast or broil them on both sides for two or three minutes, and having placed them on a dish, put a bit of butter and some chopped onion upon each herring; pour a little vinegar over all, and this will make a cheap and savoury dish to be eaten with well-boiled potatoes. No. 121. TO FRY FISH. For this purpose you must have some kind of fat. Either lard, butter, or dripping fat, would be excellent; but they must be bought, and cost a little money. True; but then, if you can afford yourselves a bit of meat occasionally, by dint of good thrift you should save the fat from the boiled meat, or the dripping from your baked meats, and thus furnish yourselves with fat for frying your fish twice a-week; and let me tell you that by introducing fish as an