Never let your fish, after it is done, remain soaking in the water in which it has been cooked; drain it at once, or it will become what cooks call "woolly." If ready too soon, let it rest on the drainer over the hot kettle, and cover it with a napkin.

If you have no fish-kettle, put your fish on a dish, tie a napkin round it, and boil it: when done, you can then lift the dish out of the pan without spoiling the appearance of the fish. Be very particular to drain every drop of water from the_fish before you serve it, or the sauce you send up with it will be ruined.

Connoisseurs in the art of cookery recommend that fish should be boiled in a "Court bouillon," in which case the process is thus described by the G. C.: "Having placed the fish in the fish-kettle with enough cold-water to cover it, add a glass of vinegar, some slices of carrots and onions, and a clove of garlic; then sweet herbs, and spices tied up in a muslin bag, with pepper, salt, and parsley or celery.

The proportions of all these must depend upon the quantity of fish to be boiled, the skill of the cook, and the taste of the company." When nearly done, half draw the fish-kettle from the fire, and let the fish simmer gently till the moment of serving. A mixture of white wine such as chablis, sauterne, or hock, and water, in equal parts, may be used instead of the vinegar and water.

Fish cooked "au bleu" is also considered a delicacy. The preparation is exactly like court bouillon, red wine being substituted for white.

Court bouillon a la Nantaise is made of milk and water in equal parts, salt, and pepper in proportion.

The art of frying fish consists in being prodigal in the use of the medium which you employed to cook with. The fish should be absolutely immersed in a bath of boiling fat or oil, which should be carefully tested so that you may be convinced of its temperature. "If your fat be not sufficiently heated," says the authority I have already quoted, " the fish you want to fry will turn out a flabby and greasy mess, instead of a crisp, appetising dish." For nearly all fish-frying, the frying basket is an invaluable utensil, used, of course, in conjunction with the deep-sided friture-pan.

Fish, fried in the English fashion, is generally egged and bread-crumbed. The Italians, who are perhaps the best 'frysters' in the world, either flour their fish, or dip it in batter. Both methods are, to my mind, vastly superior to the bread-crumbing process. If, however, you must use crumbs, see that they are stale, and well sifted; not the pithy lumps, both great and small, too often set before you, because Ramasamy will not look ahead, and rarely, if ever keeps a bottled supply of stale, well rasped bread in hand.

To obtain a satisfactory result, proceed as follows :- Having crumbled some stale bread as small as you can in a napkin, pass the crumbs through a stiff wire sieve; then place the plate containing them into the oven to dry thoroughly. To apply them properly, beat up two eggs with a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, and the same of water. This mixture should be brushed over the fish like varnish, and the fish should then be turned over in a napkin, containing the dry crumbs.

For flouring :- dip the fish in milk, and then turn it over in a napkin containing some flour. A recipe for fry-ing batter will be found in the chapter reserved for the discussion of that process of cookery.

Under the head of baking we come to that very excellent method of treating fish which is familiar to most of you as "au qratin" The cook can, in this way, produce very pleasant results, with very little toil. You can commence as plainly as possible, and go on to the most elaborate and fanciful dishes, the principles in all being similar. The fish, to begin with, should either be whole, in fillets, or slices. The pie-dish should be well buttered; tomatoes, maccaroni, mushrooms, truffles of course, finely-minced parsley, shallot, lime peel, and such fines herbes as you can command, should be used for the more elaborate compositions; whilst parsley, shallot, and butter alone with fine bread-crumbs will suffice for the plainer dish for ordinary occasions. A gravy made from the bones and trimmings, with a few pepper corns, a minced shallot and a glass of any light white wine, like chablis, hock, or sauterne, may be gently poured round your dish when it is packed ready for the oven : but the liquid ought never to come up to the level, quite, of the top layer of the fish in the pie-dish.

In connection with maccaroni and tomatoes, you should try a dusting of grated parmesan.

Rolled anchovies, and prawns, form, with truffles and mushrooms, the most appropriate garnish for an artistic "an qratin" and cream is often judiciously introduced to enrich the combination.

Fishes carefully stuffed, and baked whole, are generally nice : it is a method very well suited to fresh water fish, and a delicious way of cooking a Madras mullet, or a dish of whitings.

The best dish of stewed fish is the "matelote" which, strictly speaking, should be composed of eels, but may, I think, be equally well followed in dressing any firm-fleshed fish. As I shall speak of this dish in my menus, I need only say en passant that it is rich, vinous, spicy, and consequently generally appreciated by the muscular Christian.

Broiling fish sounds simple, but under this head there are a few toothsome recipes not to be despised. Let a good cut of seer be divided into nice cutlets. Parboil them in the morning, and set them to marinade all day in salad oil, minced shallot, parsley, vinegar, a clove of garlic, a few whole pepper corns, and a little lime peel. Take them out, wrap them with the shallot, etc., in well-oiled papers, broil over a fast clear fire, and serve with a nice sharp brown sauce like sauce Robert. Take care that the bars of your grid-iron are well oiled, for they are apt to burn delicate morsels like fillets of fish en papillotes.

Fish of fairly good size can be roasted "a la broche." The method is recommended for mullet, murrel, and all fish whose shape adapts itself, as it were, to the spit. Stuff the fish, wrap it in oiled paper, tie it to the spit, and baste continually with melted butter and white wine. Remove the paper before serving.

The Bouillabaisse may be attempted at Madras with a result sufficiently satisfactory to warrant my being bold enough to record a simple recipe for it, adapted from that of the "G. C." as follows :-

Take any sort of small fish, such as small pomfret, whitings, soles, mullets, or robal, - the greater the variety the better, - and for two pounds of mixed fish, slice up two Bombay onions, two fairly large tomatoes emptied of their seeds and cut into quarters, and one carrot; prepare a couple of slices of lime with the pithy skin cut off, a bag containing six cloves, a dozen pepper corns, a clove of garlic, and the peel of a lime pared as finely as possible; a salt-spoonful of saffron, a tea-spoonful of salt, and one pod of capsicum sliced, will also be wanted : put the whole into a stew-pan, and add to it a wine-glass of salad oil, one of chablis, and a pint and a half of cold water, boil for about half an hour, and, just before serving, add a heaped up table-spoonful of freshly-chopped curled parsley. The parsley is absolutely indispensable. Serve the fish, in a deep dish, with some of the broth round it, sending up the rest of the broth first, poured boiling hot over some slices of stale bread. Remove the bag of condiments, of course, before serving the bouillabaisse. The dish will not be as good, to be sure, as that which some of my readers may have enjoyed in the south of France, but if the ingredients I have named be used without any omissions, a very fair imitation will certainly be produced.

Having thus sketched the various ways of preparing fish for the table, I must request my readers to note the recipes I have given in my detailed menus, remembering that my object has been to suggest dishes, which, in my humble opinion, will be found more pleasing than the ordinary plainly boiled lumps of fish, which, with the stereotyped concomitants, I have so strenuously condemned too often greet the diner out in Madras.