Page:Art of Cookery 1774 edition.djvu/270

232 TAKE a piece of fresh salmon, scale it, and wipe it clean, (let your piece or pieces be as big as will lie cleverly on your pot) season it with Jamaica pepper, black pepper, mace, and cloves beat fine, mixed with salt, a little sal-prunella, beat fine, and rub the bone with. Season with a little of the spice, pour clarified butter over it, and bake it well. Then take it out carefully, and lay it to drain; when cold, season it well, lay it in your pot close, and cover it with clarified butter, as above. Thus you may do carp, tench, trout, and several forts of fish. SCALE and clean your salmon down the back, dry it well, and cut it as near the shape of your pot as you can. Take two nutmegs, an ounce of mace and cloves beaten, half an ounce of white pepper, and an ounce of salt; then take out all the bones, cut off the jole below the fins, and cut off the tail. Season the scaly side first, lay that at the bottom of the pot; then rub the seasoning on the other side, cover it with a dish, and let it stand all night. It must be put double, and the scaly side, top and bottom; put butter bottom and top, and cover the pot with some stiff coarse paste. Three, hours will bake it, if a large fish; if a small one, two hours; and when it comes out of the oven, let it stand half an hour; then uncover it, and raise it up at one end, that the gravy may run our, then put a trencher and a weight on it to press out the gravy. When the butter is cold, take it out clear from the gravy, add some more to it, and put it in a pan before the fire; when it is melted, pour it over the salmon; and when it is cold, paper it up. As to the seasoning of these things, it must be according to your palate, more or less. N. B. Always take great care that no gravy or whey of the butter is left in the potting; if there is, it will not keep. C H A P.