Boiled Codfish. (Fresh.)+

Lay the fish in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour before it is time to cook it. When it has been wiped free of the salt and water, wrap it in a clean linen cloth kept for such purposes. The cloth should be dredged with flour, to prevent sticking. Sew up the edges in such a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but one thickness of the cloth over any part. The wrapping should be fitted neatly to the shape of the piece to be cooked. Put into the fish-kettle, pour on plenty of hot water, and boil briskly - fifteen minutes for each pound.

Have ready a sauce prepared thus: -

To one gill boiling water add as much milk, and when it is scalding-hot, stir in - leaving the. sauce-pan on the fire - two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled thickly in flour; as this thickens, two beaten eggs. Season with salt and chopped parsley, and when, after one good boil, you withdraw it from the fire, add a dozen capers, or pickled nasturtium seeds, or, if you prefer, a spoonful of vinegar in which celery-seeds have been steeped. Put the fish into a hot dish, and pour the sauce over it. Some serve in a butter-boat; but I fancy that the boiling sauce applied to the steaming fish imparts a richness it cannot gain later. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and circles of hard-boiled eggs, laid around the edge of the dish.

Rock-Fish

Rock-fish and river-bass are very nice, cooked as above, but do not need to be boiled so long as codfish.

Boiled Codfish. (Salt)

Put the fish to soak over night in lukewarm water - as early as eight o'clock in the evening. Change this for more warm water at bed-time and cover closely. Change again in the morning and wash off the salt. Two hours before dinner plunge into very cold water. This makes it firm. Finally, set over the fire with enough lukewarm water to cover it, and boil for half an hour. Drain well; lay it on a hot dish, and pour over it egg-sauce prepared as in the foregoing receipt, only substituting the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a paste with butter, for the beaten raw egg.

This is a useful receipt for country housekeepers who can seldom procure fresh cod. Salt mackerel, prepared in the same way, will repay the care and time required, so superior is it to the Friday's dish of salt fish, as usually served.

Should the cold fish left over be used for fish-balls - as it should be - it will be found that the sauce which has soaked into it while hot has greatly improved it.

Codfish Balls+

Prepare the fish precisely as for boiling whole. Cut in pieces when it has been duly washed and soaked, and boil twenty minutes. Turn off the water, and cover with fresh from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil twenty minutes more, drain the fish very dry, and spread upon a dish to cool. When perfectly cold, pick to pieces with a fork, removing every vestige of skin and bone, and shredding very fine. When this is done, add an equal bulk of mashed potato; work into a stiff batter by adding a lump of butter and sweet milk, and if you want to have them very nice, a beaten egg. Flour your hands and make the mixture into balls or cakes. Drop them into boiling lard or good dripping, and fry to a light brown. Plainer fish-cakes may be made of the cod and potatoes alone, moulded round like biscuit. In any shape the dish is popular.