them green with a little chopped parsley mixed with the bread crumbs. Serve anchovy or Dutch sauce, and plain melted butter with it. Time.-According to size, 1 hour, more or less.

Average cost.-Seldom bought.

Seasonable from September to March.

Note.-Pike à la génévese may be stewed in the same manner as salmon à la génévese.

FRIED PLAICE.

297.-INGREDIENTS.-Hot lard, or clarified dripping; egg and bread

crumbs.

Mode. This fish is fried in the same manner as soles. Wash and wipe them thoroughly dry, and let them remain in a cloth until it is time to dress them. Brush them over with egg, and cover with bread crumbs mixed with a little flour. Fry of a nice brown in hot dripping or lard, and garnish with fried parsley and cut lemon. Send them to table with shrimp-sauce and plain melted butter.

Time.-About 5 minutes. Average cost, 3d. each.

Seasonable from May to November.
Sufficient, 4 plaice for 4 persons.

Note.-Plaice may be boiled plain, and served with melted butter. Garnish with parsley and cut lemon.

STEWED PLAICE.

298. INGREDIENTS.-4 or 5 plaice, 2 onions, oz. ground ginger, 1 pint of lemon-juice, pint water, 6 eggs; cayenne to taste.

Mode.-Cut the fish into pieces about 2 inches wide, salt them, and let them remain hour. Slice and fry the onions a light brown; put them in a stewpan, on the top of which put the fish without washing, and add the ginger, lemon-juice, and water. Cook slowly for hour, and do not let the fish boil, or it will break. Take it out, and when the liquor is cool, add 6 well-beaten eggs; simmer till it thickens, when pour over the fish, and serve.

THE PLAICE.

Time.-hour. Average cost for this quantity, 1s. 9d.

Seasonable from May to November. Sufficient for 4 persons; according to size.

THE PLAICE.-This fish is found both in the Baltic and the Mediterranean, and is also abundant on the coast of England. It keeps well, and, like all ground-fish, is very tenacious of life. Its flesh is inferior to that of the sole, and, as it is a low-priced fish, it is generally bought by the poor. The best brought to the London market

are called Dowers plaice, from their being caught in the Dowers, or flats, between Hastings and Folkstone.

TO BOIL PRAWNS OR SHRIMPS.

299. INGREDIENTS.- lb. salt to each gallon of water.

Mode.-Prawns should be very red, and have no spawn under the tail; much depends on their freshness and the way in which they are cooked. Throw them into boiling water, salted as above, and keep them boiling for about 7 or 8 minutes. Shrimps should be done in the same way; but less time must be allowed. It may easily be known when they are done by their changing colour. Care should be taken that they are not over-boiled, as they then become tasteless and indigestible.

Time.-Prawns, about 8 minutes; shrimps, about 5 minutes.
Average cost, prawns, 2s. per lb.; shrimps, 6d. per pint.
Seasonable all the year.

TO DRESS PRAWNS.

300. Cover a dish with a large cup reversed, and over that lay a small white napkin. Arrange the prawns on it in the form of a pyramid, and garnish with plenty of parsley.

BOILED SALMON.

301. INGREDIENTS.—6 oz. of salt to each gallon of water,-sufficient water to cover the fish.

Mode.-Scale and clean the fish, and be particular that no blood is left inside; lay it in the fish-kettle with sufficient cold water to cover it, adding salt in the above proportion. Bring it quickly to a boil, take off all the scum, and let it simmer gently till the fish is done, which will be when the meat separates easily from the bone. Experience alone can teach the cook to fix the time for boiling fish; but it is especially to be remembered, that it should never be underdressed, as then nothing is more unwholesome. Neither let it remain in the kettle after it is sufficiently cooked, as that would render it insipid, watery, and colourless. Drain it, and if not wanted for a few minutes, keep it warm by means of warm cloths laid over it. Serve on a hot napkin, garnish with cut lemon and parsley, and send lobster or shrimp sauce, and plain melted butter to table with it. A dish of dressed cucumber usually accompanies this fish.

Time.-8 minutes to each lb. for large thick salmon; 6 minutes for thin fish. Average cost, in full season, 1s. 3d. per lb. Seasonable from April to August.

Sufficient, lb., or rather less, for each person.

Note.-Cut lemon should be put on the table with this fish; and a little of the juice squeezed over it is considered by many persons a most agreeable addition. Boiled peas are also, by some connoisseurs, considered especially adapted to be served with salmon.

TO CHOOSE SALMON.-To be good, the belly should be firm and thick, which may readily be ascertained by feeling it with the thumb and finger. The circumstance of this fish having red gills, though given as a standing rule in most cookery-books, as a sign of its goodness, is not at all to be relied on, as this quality can be easily given them by art.

SALMON AND CAPER SAUCE.

302. INGREDIENTS.-2 slices of salmon, lb. butter, teaspoonful of chopped parsley, 1 shalot; salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to taste. Mode.-Lay the salmon in a baking-dish, place pieces of butter over it, and add the other ingredients, rubbing a little of the seasoning into the fish; baste it frequently; when done, take it out and drain for a minute or two; lay it in a dish, pour caper sauce over it, and serve. Salmon dressed in this way, with tomato sauce, is very delicious.

Time.-About hour. Average cost, 1s. 3d. per lb.
Seasonable from April to August.

Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.

THE MIGRATORY HABITS OF THE SALMON.-The instinct with which the salmon revisits its native river, is one of the most curious circumstances in its natural history. As the swallow returns annually to its nest, so it returns to the same spot to deposit its ova. This fact would seem to have been repeatedly proved. M. De Lande fastened a copper ring round a salmon's tail, and found that, for three successive seasons, it returned to the same place. Dr. Bloch states that gold and silver rings have been attached by eastern princes to salmon, to prove that a communication existed between the Persian Gulf and the Caspian and Northern Seas, and that the experiment succeeded.

COLLARED SALMON.

303. INGREDIENTS.-A piece of salmon, say 3 lbs., a high seasoning of salt, pounded mace, and pepper; water and vinegar, 3 bay-leaves. Mode.-Split the fish; scale, bone, and wash it thoroughly clean; wipe it, and rub in the seasoning inside and out; roll it up, and bind firmly; lay it in a kettle, cover it with vinegar and water († vinegar, in proportion to the water); add the bay-leaves and a good seasoning of salt and whole pepper, and simmer till done. Do not remove the lid. Serve with melted butter or anchovy sauce. For preserving the collared fish, boil up the liquor in which it was cooked, and add a little more vinegar. Pour over when cold.

Time.- hour, or rather more.

HABITAT OF THE SALMON.-The salmon is styled by Walton the "king of fresh-water fish," and is found distributed over the north of Europe and Asia, from Britain to

Kamschatka, but is never found in warm latitudes, nor has it ever been caught even so far south as the Mediterranean. It lives in fresh as well as in salt waters, depositing its spawn in the former, hundreds of miles from the mouths of some of those rivers to which it has been known to resort. In 1859, great efforts were made to introduce this fish into the Australian colonies; and it is believed that the attempt, after many difficulties, which were very skilfully overcome, has been successful.

CRIMPED SALMON.

304. Salmon is frequently dressed in this way at many fashionable tables, but must be very fresh, and cut into slices 2 or 3 inches thick. Lay these in cold salt and water for 1 hour; have ready some boiling water, salted, as in recipe No. 301, and well skimmed; put in the fish, and simmer gently for hour, or rather more; should it be very thick, garnish the same as boiled salmon, and serve with the

Note.-Never use vinegar with salmon, as it spoils the taste and colour of the fish.

THE SALMON TRIBE.-This is the Abdominal fish, forming the fourth of the orders of Linnæus. They are distinguished from other fishes by having two dorsal fins, of which the hindmost is fleshy and without rays.

They have teeth both on

THE SALMON.

the tongue and in the jaws, whilst the body is covered with round and minutely striated scales.

CURRIED SALMON.

305. INGREDIENTS.-Any remains of boiled salmon, pint of strong or medium stock (No. 105), 1 onion, 1 tablespoonful of curry-powder, 1 teaspoonful of Harvey's sauce, 1 teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, 1 oz. of butter, the juice of lemon, cayenne and salt to taste.

Mode.-Cut up the onions into small pieces, and fry them of a pale brown in the butter; add all the ingredients but the salmon, and simmer gently till the onion is tender, occasionally stirring the contents; cut the salmon into small square pieces, carefully take away all skin and bone, lay it in the stewpan, and let it gradually heat through; but do not allow it to boil long.

Time.- hour. Average cost, exclusive of the cold fish, 9d.

GROWTH OF THE SALMON.-At the latter end of the year-some as soon as Novembersalmon begin to press up the rivers as far as they can reach, in order to deposit their spawn, which they do in the sand or gravel, about eighteen inches deep. Here it lies buried till the spring, when, about the latter end of March, it begins to exclude the young, which gradually increase to four or five inches in length, and are then termed smelts or smouts. About the beginning of May, the river seems to be alive with them, and there is no forming an idea of their numbers without having seen them. A seasonable flood, however, comes, and hurries them to the "great deep;" whence, about the middle of June, they commence their return to the river again. By this time they are twelve or sixteen inches long, and progressively increase, both in number and size, till about the end of July, when

they have become large enough to be denominated grilse. Early in August they become fewer in numbers, but of greater size, having advanced to a weight of from six to nine pounds. This rapidity of growth appears surprising, and realizes the remark of Walton, that "the salmlet becomes a salmon in as short a time as a gosling becomes a goose.' Recent writers have, however, thrown considerable doubts on this quick growth of the salmon.

SALMON CUTLETS.

306. Cut the slices inch thick, and season them with pepper and salt; butter a sheet of white paper, lay each slice on a separate piece, with their ends twisted; broil gently over a clear fire, and serve with anchovy or caper sauce. When higher seasoning is required, add a few chopped herbs and a little spice.

Time.-5 to 10 minutes.

SALMON A LA GENEVESE.

307. INGREDIENTS.-2 slices of salmon, 2 chopped shalots, a little parsley, a small bunch of herbs, 2 bay-leaves, 2 carrots, pounded mace, pepper and salt to taste, 4 tablespoonfuls of Madeira, pint of white stock (No. 107), thickening of butter and flour, 1 teaspoonful of essence of anchovies, the juice of 1 lemon, cayenne and salt to taste.

Mode.-Rub the bottom of a stewpan over with butter, and put in the shalots, herbs, bay-leaves, carrots, mace, and seasoning; stir them for 10 minutes over a clear fire, and add the Madeira or sherry; simmer gently for hour, and strain through a sieve over the fish, which stew in this gravy. As soon as the fish is sufficiently cooked, take away all the liquor, except a little to keep the salmon moist, and put it into another stewpan; add the stock, thicken with butter and flour, and put in the anchovies, lemon-juice, cayenne, and salt; lay the salmon on a hot dish, pour over it part of the sauce, and serve the remainder in a tureen.

Time.-1 hour. Average cost for this quantity, 3s. 6d.
Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons.

PICKLED SALMON.

308. INGREDIENTS.-Salmon, oz. of whole pepper,

oz. of whole

allspice, 1 teaspoonful of salt, 2 bay-leaves, equal quantities of vinegar and the liquor in which the fish was boiled.

Mode.-After the fish comes from table, lay it in a nice dish with a cover to it, as it should be excluded from the air, and take away the bone; boil the liquor and vinegar with the other ingredients for 10 minutes, and let it stand to get cold; pour it over the salmon, and in 12 hours this will be fit for the table.

Time, 10 minutes.