131. - Halibut

Halibut should be cut into slices of four pounds each, and may be baked or fried. The skin on the back must be scored. When baked, use a sufficient quantity of butter to keep it moist. If boiled, lay it in the kettle on a strainer, cover it with salted water; boil it slowly half or three-quarters of an hour and skim it well. Garnish it with horseradish, serve it with melted butter. To fry halibut, cut it in slices less than an inch thick; and with this, as with all other fish, take care to have plenty of butter, lard, or oil in the pan, and that it be hot before the fish is put in.

132. - Halibut-Stewed

Put into a stewpan half a pint of fish broth, a table-spoonful of vinegar, and one of mushroom ketchup; add an anchovy, two good-sized onions cut in quarters, a bunch of sweet herbs, and one clove of garlic; add a pint and a half of water, let it stew an hour and a quarter, strain it off clear, put into it the head and shoulders of a fine halibut and stew until tender; thicken with butter and flour, and serve*.

133. - To Collop Halibut

Cut the fish into nice cutlets of about an inch thick and fry them; then put them into a broth made of the bones, four onions, a stick of celery, and a bundle of sweet herbs boiled together for half an hour. Strain this broth, thicken it, and stew the fish for half an hour, adding salt, pepper, a grating of nutmeg and pounded mace, a spoonful of soy or fish-sauce, and half that quantity of lemon juice with a little shred lemon peel.

134. - Halibut A La Creme

Rub the halibut with salt and lemon; put it to boil in a kettle, allowing one ounce of salt to every six quarts of water; simmer oven, a moderate fire. A halibut of eight pounds should simmer twenty minutes or more. When it begins to crack slightly, lift it with a drainer, and dish it without a napkin, having it first carefully drained, and absorbing the water that runs from the fish with a napkin. Put one pint of cream on the fire in a stewpan, and when near simmering add half a pound of fresh butter; stir it quickly till the butter is melted, but do not let the cream.boil; add three yolks of eggs, season with salt, pepper and lemon juice; pour as much over the halibut as will cover it, and serve the remainder in a boat. Or, if preferred, dish the fish on a napkin, garnish with parsley, and serve the sauce in a boat. This sauce must not be made until the moment it is wanted.

135. - To Dry Haddock

Choose the finest you can obtain; clean them, remove the eyes, the entrails, and the gills; clear away also all the blood from the backbone. Wipe them as dry as you can with a clean soft cloth, and fill in with salt the spaces which contained the eyes; also rub in a quantity in the inside of the fish; lay them in a cool place on a dry flag-stone, or a piece of board for eighteen or twenty hours, then hang them in a dry place. Four days will be found quite sufficient to prepare them for eating.

136. - To Dress Dried Haddock

They should be skinned, rubbed with egg, and rolled in new bread-crumbs; lay them in a dish before the fire to brown, baste with butter, and when well browned serve with egg sauce.