Planked Shad, Supreme

Split a shad weighing about three pounds from which the head and tail have been taken. Wipe with a damp cloth. Brush over a hardwood plank with olive oil and upon it fasten the fish, skin side down. Let cook in the oven of a gas range about twenty minutes, basting often with a little melted butter. Lacking a gas oven the fish may be broiled over coals. Cook principally on the flesh side. Remove some distance from the coals, after the first three or four minutes. After the fish has cooked twenty minutes, pipe hot mashed potatoes around the edge of the plank, brush over the potato border with the beaten yolk of an egg mixed with two or three tablespoonfuls of milk and set the plank into a hot oven to brown the edges of the potato and finish the cooking. Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper and dot with tiny bits of butter or spread with a little creamed butter. Set small bunches of cooked asparagus (one for each person to be served) on the fish close to the potato. Down the center of the fish dispose pimentos (one for each) filled with creamed roe. Set a mushroom, cooked Algonquin style, above the roe in each pimento. Serve Hollandaise sauce in a bowl.

Creamed Roe In Pimentos

Cover the roe with water just below the boiling point; add a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of vinegar and two slices of onion, and let simmer very gently twenty minutes. Remove from the liquid and cut in tiny cubes. Make a cream sauce, allowing a scant cup of sauce for a heaping cup of cubes using part cream as the liquid. Season as needed with salt and pepper; add a teaspoonful of lemon juice and the cubes. The mixture should be quite consistent. Trim the edges of the pimentos, that they may be even on the top.

Mushrooms, Algonquin Style

Take as many fresh mushrooms (campestris) as there are people to be served. Remove the stems and peel the caps. (Dry these trimmings and store for future use.) Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a frying pan; in it cook the mushroom caps two or three minutes, principally on the rounding side. Set them gill-side up on an agate plate, put an oyster in each, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper, and set a bit of butter on each oyster. Set into a hot oven and baste once or twice with melted butter. Let cook until the oysters look plump and the edges curl, then set above the roe in the pimentos. It will usually take a little longer to cook the mushrooms and oysters than to brown the edges of the potato. This dish of mushrooms is often served as an entree; in this case the mushrooms are set to cook on rounds of toast, the basting is done with butter melted in hot chicken broth, and Bechamel sauce, made of chicken broth and cream, is poured over or around the whole.

Planked White Fish

Planked white fish is cooked in the same manner as shad, and both may be served with onions, peas, cauliflower, asparagus tips, string beans, etc. Radishes cut to resemble fuschias make a pretty-garnish for planked fish, but the heat - unless the radishes are well protected underneath by parsley spoils them for eating.