A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery

up in your hand and either form it in the shape of a round ball or flat cake, as you like. Have ready a frying kettle or deep frying pan with enough fat or drippings, or lard, in it to cover three or four of the codfish cakes or balls, when you drop them into it. So that if you use a frying pan you must have a deep frying pan. You may make in that case codfish cakes, not balls. If you have a frying kettle you can make little round balls. When the fat is smoking hot drop the codfish cakes or balls into it and fry them just a golden brown, light brown. Take them out of the fat with a skimmer and lay them on brown paper for a moment to free them from grease, then serve them hot. You will notice that I always tell you in frying everything to take it out of the fat and lay it for a moment on brown paper, because then you are sure to free it from grease. Not necessarily very coarse paper; just ordinary brown wrapping paper. I do not mean manila paper, but the common brown wrapping paper that comes around groceries and meat, that tradesmen generally use. The paper must be porous so that the grease will be easily absorbed. That is the only point you have to remember. The usual way of frying codfish cakes is simply to put fat enough in the pan to keep them from sticking, and in that way they are not browned all over, that is, they are not browned on the sides. They are simply browned on the top and on the bottom, and the fat has, of course, generally soaked into them so that you get them thoroughly greasy unless you have fat enough to cover them and have the fat smoking hot when you put them in. In frying it is very easy to use the fat repeatedly, if you only remember one thing. The fat you fry fish in you want to keep always for