Place the fillets of mackerel in a deep, clean dish. Just cover them with boiling water. Leave for an instant. Take out and dry. Dust well with coarse black pepper and put on top of each fillet half a teaspoonful of minced chives and parsley (or finely-minced onion failing chives), and a bit of butter the size of a small walnut. Grease a bag, put in the fillets, and cook for twenty minutes in a hot oven (350 Fahr.). Take out and serve with brown bread and butter.

Maréchale de Homard Aux oeufs. When lobsters are plentiful they are often to be had as cheaply as sixpence and ninepence each, so that this dish is not really as extravagant as it sounds. Take the white and claw meat of the lobster. Chop it up small and reserve it. Take the brown meat and rub it till quite smooth in a bowl with a bit of butter and a good dust of white pepper. Then add by degrees the contents of half a bottle of tomato catsup. Work the whole well together. Put into a bag four rashers of bacon. Cook for four minutes. Then take out the rashers and reserve them on a hot dish. Put in the lobster and tomato mixture and cook for eight minutes. Now cut open the bag, put in the white meat, and make hot for another four or five minutes. Be careful to lower the gas for this, as the white meat of the lobster must not get very hot. It must not actually cook, or it will toughen and be spoilt. Empty out carefully into a very hot dish. Garnish with the rashers of bacon and serve at once. (300 Fahr.)

Maréchale of Crab is prepared in exactly the same way, but as crabs run larger, from six to seven rashers of bacon may be used instead of four. Fried bread should garnish both these dishes.