To pickle salt herring

(Recipe #84, page 143)

Remove the milt and scale the herring, but without cutting the body open, wash them well, and soak them for two days in cold water or better in milk to extract all the salt.

Pickled mackerel

(Recipe #73, pages 141 – 142)

Prepare and boil the fish as in the preceding recipe, but use equal parts of water and vinegar with the herbs listed. When it is done, remove it from the broth and replace it when the broth has cooled. Any kind of fish left to cool in the broth sacrifices some flavor.

To serve, place the fish on a platter garnished with parsley sprigs and pass olive oil, vinegar, pepper, and mustard on the side, or serve it with unpeeled potatoes and butter.

Translated by David Green.

Boiled mackerel

(Recipe #72, page 141)

The mackerel is a delicate, fatty fish. It should be gutted as closely as possible to the head, washed, and placed for an hour in heavily salted water with a generous admixture of vinegar. Mackerel may be cooked whole or cut into pieces. If cooked whole, place it curled on a platter and pour hot vinegar over it.

Sturgeon

(Recipe #54, pages 136 – 137)

When the sturgeon has been killed and gutted, wrap it in a cloth and lay it on a stone slab in the cellar for a day or two, because it is tough when cooked fresh. Before boiling, rub it down several times with salt and water to remove all traces of slime; depending on its size, cut it into 5–12 pieces, which can be further divided into convenient pieces after cooking.

Minnows (small fish)

(Recipe #49, pages 135 – 136)

Minnows are neither scaled nor gutted, only rubbed with a bit of salt and washed on a sieve placed in water. At the same time, place a pot with water and salt, some bay leaves, a lot of peppercorns, and shallots or small onions on the stove, and boil for a bit to draw out the seasoning. Dump the fish into the water and remove the pot after a few moments; these tiny fish scarcely need cooking. Place them in a serving dish with the seasoning and send them to the table cold with oil and vinegar.

Translated by David Green.

Pike or pickerel with egg sauce (also delicious)

(Recipe #40, page 134)

Put the fish’s tail in its mouth and place it in not too large a casserole (to keep the broth from becoming tepid) with equal parts of vinegar and cold water, some onions, two bay leaves, some peppercorns, a half to whole parsley root, and the necessary salt. Set it on the stove and boil until done. Carefully remove the fish to a heated platter, pour the following sauce over it, and cover.

Prepare some mushrooms, crayfish tails, and crayfish butter. Stir 1 spoonful of flour into a knob of foaming butter; meanwhile stir 10 egg yolks into a scant quart of strong bouillon. Pour the bouillon into the flour and butter and let it come to a boil, constantly stirring. Add the mushrooms, crayfish tails, and butter, and a bit of lemon juice, and pour the sauce over the fish.

Translated by David Green.

Perch another way

(Recipe #28, page 132)

In contrast to no. 26, scale the entire fish with a scraper, clean them, and set them on the stove in boiling salted water with onions, whole peppercorns, and bay leaves and cook until done. Then mince two hardboiled eggs and some parsley, stir in nutmeg and zwieback crumbs, place the perch in a bowl, sprinkle them with the mixture, and send them to the table with hot melted butter.

Translated by David Green.

Perch Hollandaise

(Recipe #26, page 132)

Only the belly of perch needs to be scaled with a scraper; when they are gutted, leave the milt and liver in place. Rinse them well and boil them about 10 minutes in barely boiling salted water, in which a generous quantity of parsley roots with a few green leaves attached have been boiled until soft with a knob of butter and some whole peppercorns. When serving the perch, lay the parsley roots between them on a platter and send them steaming hot to the table, with the water in which they were cooked. Serve with dinner rolls.

This dish makes a good first course. (Perch need more salt than eel, less than trout.)

Translated by David Green.

[Note: Hollandaise in this case refers to the country of origin – The Netherlands – not the type sauce served with the fish. German is auf holländische Art.]

Carp with Polish sauce

(Recipe #21, pages, 130 – 131)

Kill the carp as described in no. 1, scale and split , cut in pieces, and reserve the blood in vinegar.

For every 3 pounds of fish, take 3 carrots, 1 parsnip, 2 parsley roots, 3 onions, and ¼ celery root, all sliced; place in a casserole with some ginger, a few cloves and peppercorns, and a couple of bay leaves. Add equal parts of beer and water and boil for ¼ hour. Then place the carp in the liquid, add the necessary salt, 3 ounces of butter, ½ of a seeded lemon, the blood, and a wine-glassful of vinegar (including the vinegar mixed with the blood); cook tightly covered for another ¼ of an hour.

Pickled eel no. 1

(Recipe #15, page 129)

Skin the eel, soak it in water for a couple of hours, salt it for an hour, and cut it in pieces. Dry them with a cloth and fry them in a clean pan with good quality olive oil; lay them out to cool on blotting paper. To the oil left in the pan add shallots, peppercorns, whole mace, a few bay leaves, seeded lemon slices; boil for ¼ hour with enough vinegar and water to cover the eel. Let the broth cool and pour it over the eel in a stoneware pot kept in a cool place until needed.

The eel can be served by itself, or the pieces can be part of a mixed dish garnished with quartered fresh hardboiled eggs, small pickles, pickled pearl onions, and beets, sprinkled with capers.

Translated by David Green.