Common-Sense Papers on Cookery

the turbot, or rather a slice of one, is supposed to be boiling in a saucepan; take it out and put it on a cloth to drain; take first half a dozen smelts and pop them into the fat you have just taken the eels out of; a very short time will cook them. Place the turbot on a fish-napkin, put a piece of parsley on the top of it, and place the fried smelts round the edge. The red mullet simply wants slipping off the tin on to an ordinary dish just as it is, and the next course is done. The lobster cutlets might be sent up with some fried fish instead, as we presume no one would think of having all this fish at one dinner. We therefore now come to the whitebait, and will attempt to describe the secret of having this really delicious and delicate fish well cooked. Of course, in the first place, it is absolutely indispensable, to have the fish perfectly fresh, and in an unbroken state, and it is on this account that whitebait is always had in the greatest perfection at the various hotels which overlook the river where the whitebait is caught. We will suppose, therefore, the whitebait is ready. Now everything depends upon expedition. The whitebait must be first dried and then plunged as speedily as possible into boiling fat. First we will suppose ready on the fire a deep frying-pan full of _boiling_ lard; in order to insure the lard being sufficiently hot, let a drop of water fall into it and see if it hisses; next have ready a wire whitebait-basket, then throw the whitebait into some fine dry flour on a cloth; don’t be afraid of having too much flour, as in these water-side hotels the flour is an inch thick; next shake the whitebait free of the flour in a wide sieve, something like what is used for sifting oats; this is for the purpose of getting rid as much as possible of the flour, to avoid the whitebait being pasty and clammy. Next, having