Page:Australian enquiry book of household and general information.djvu/43

Stewed Oysters.—Put into your stew pan about a cupful of sweet milk with the liquor from your oysters, a small onion cut up fine, pepper and salt to taste. Let this come to a boil, and thicken with a good tablespoonful of flour, blended smoothly, and a teaspoonful of butter. Now, drop in your oysters one by one, stirring all the time. Just let them boil up together, and remove from the fire. Serve with snippets of toast round the dish.

Forcemeat for Fish Soups.—One small tin of lobster, one teaspoonful of anchovy paste or sauce, one head of boiled celery, the yolk of a hard boiled egg, salt, cayenne and a little mace, one cupful of bread crumbs, a tablespoonful of butter, and two eggs to mix them. Make into balls, fry, and add to the soup when in the tureen.

Baked Mullet.—Most fish are nice baked, but mullet is best of all, on account of its being so fat at certain times in the year. Scale and clean a large mullet, and prepare a stuffing of bread crumbs, parsely, a little onion to taste pepper and salt. Stuff the fish with this and sew it up. Lay it in a baking dish with a little fat, and bake half-an-hour, or longer if needed, in a quick oven. Serve with slices of buttered toast.

Fish Baked in Vinegar.—Scale and clean three or four medium sized fish. Lay them in a pie dish with some pepper corns and a few cloves. Pour in one cup of vinegar, and the same of water. Let them bake slowly two or three hours. To be eaten cold. Large fish can be cut up, and done in this way, and eels are very good so done.

Baked Fish.—The head and shoulders of a large thick fish are very good baked with a thick layer of bread crumbs over it, and a few slices of bacon laid on that again. About an hour is long enough, and then serve with hard eggs.

To Make Up Cold Fish.

Ingredients: Cold fish, 1 pint of milk, 1 teaspoonful of butter, 2 or 3

tablespoonsful of anchovy sauce (or half the quantity of paste), 1 tablespoonful cornflour or flour, pepper and

salt.

Mode: Pick from the bones all the best pieces. Then put the milk into a shallow stew pan or an enamel frying pan, let it boil and stir in the butter or dripping, anchovy sauce or paste, blend the cornflour with a little cold milk and stir into the boiling milk over the fire. Lastly add the cold fish, taking care not to stir to a mash. Let it become thoroughly hot, add pepper and salt to taste, and serve in a wall of mashed potatoes, if liked, or garnished with hard boiled egg.

Herring Curry.

Ingredients: 6 or 7 herrings, 1 cup milk, 1 teaspoonful curry powder, and 1 teaspoonful cornflour.

Mode: Cover the herrings with a little water, let them stew until cooked, then break up and remove the worst of the bones. Put on the fire again with the milk. When they boil mix the curry powder with the cornflour, blend and stir into the herrings. Serve in a wall of plain rice, boiled in water.

Crayfish Curry.

Ingredients: One large basinful of crayfish, one pint of milk, one tablespoonful of flour, one tablespoonful of curry powder.

Mode: By crayfish I mean the common small craw or crayfish the children catch in such numbers in every water hole and swamp. I have seen people despise these small shellfish and declare nothing would induce them to eat them. But, as a matter of fact, they are quite equal to salt water prawns if properly cooked. Boiled in salt and water they are very good eaten cold; and curried, they are delicious. Skin and take off the heads and legs of a good basinful of cooked crayfish. Put the milk into a pan, let it come to the boil, and thicken with the flour and curry powder. Pepper and salt the fish well, and throw them in by degrees to the mixture on the fire, stirring now and then. Serve in a wall of rice and garnish with a few slices of lemon.