How To Determine The Freshness Of Fish

Of fresh fish there is no odor; the flesh is firm, bright, and crisp-looking; the eyes are bright, not dull and lustreless, and the gills are of a bright red color.

How To Clean Fish

Fish, either salt or fresh, is the better if it be cleaned and drawn immediately on being taken from the water. This is emphatically true in the case of fresh-water fish. Fish cleaned at the market will need additional attention. Begin at the tail and scrape the fish to remove scales. See that the flesh be clean close to the backbone. Wash quickly, inside and out, but do not let the fish stand in the water, drain and dry.

Let stand, skin side down, upon the ice until time of cooking. This, according to Izaak Walton, should be speedy. Mackerel and bluefish, in particular, after transporation, even on ice, scarcely resemble the same fish, when it is eaten within a few hours after it has been taken from the salt water.

Serving Fish

If the fish is to be served whole, leave head and tail intact, but remove the eyes and cut off the fins. In whatever way the fish be cooked, it should be carefully drained and mounted; use parsley or cress most lavishly in its garnishing.

How To Remove The Fish Skin

It is a very simple matter to remove the bones also the skin from some kinds of fish, thus leaving the flesh clear and intact. Cut off the fins along the back, and then a strip of skin less than half an inch wide down the full length of the back; also cut the skin around the head. Dip the fingers in salt that they may not slip, then, after loosening the skin below the head, draw it off from one side of the fish, by pulling gently with one hand and pushing with the back of a knife held in the other hand, so as to keep the flesh whole; repeat the process on the other side of the fish.

How To Remove The Bones Of Fish

Beginning at the tail, on one side, slip the knife in between the flesh and the bone and cleave the flesh from the bone its entire length; this gives one fillet; remove the other in the same manner. These fillets may be cooked whole, or cut in such pieces as are desired. Halibut cut in transverse slices, half an inch thick, is filleted by removing the skin on the edge and the single piece of bone from the centre. Each slice thus gives four fillets. Fillets of halibut and flounders are often sold as "fillets of sole." The sole is not found in our waters. The inexpensive flounder, dear to memory through the fairy tales of Grimm, will be found when filleted and served with tomato, or other piquant sauce, a most appetizing tidbit; but it is not quite the equal of the English sole. The more expensive chicken halibut is considered by many superior to sole. Large fillets from cod or haddock may be baked on an oiled fish-sheet with an oyster or bread-stuffing between and buttered crumbs above. If small, they may be marinated, tolled and fastened in shape with a small skewer or wooden toothpick. Butter the. skewers that they may be easily withdrawn after the fish is cooked. These fillets may be braised, baked, or, after egging-and bread-crumbing, fried.

Frozen fish need to be thawed out in cold water, then cooked at once.