1885 New Guide Hotel Bar Restaurant

THE NEW GUIDE FOR HOTELS, ETC.

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CHAPTER V.

Fish Cooking.

IT is a well known fact that the Jewish fried fish is the most celebrated in the world as being the most perfect style of frying known. There is nothing more disgusting than a greasy, dirty fish steak, fried as some English cooks profess to fry ; with the white flesh of the fish struggling against the dirty brown fat. Fried fish has had a new era since the fish and batter shops, and potato chips made their appearance. The work of those emporiums would put to shame some of the so-called pro- fessional cooks — charlatans I call them. Who has not met with the sickly drab, bread-crumb and egg dressing, reeking with pork fat, that has never boiled but spluttered in the pan, fighting with adulterant water, and has been dished without draining, after soaking in tepid fat till the flesh is tender? The first general remark about fish, is that they should be perfectly fresh and undamaged by transport. Many of the large hotels and restaurants have fish tanks fitted up for carp, tench, &c., and they, like oysters and mus- sels, are fed for a few days before dressing. Fresh water fish take readily to a kind of German paste ball made of scalded white roll, pressed dry and mixed with linseed meal and common glucose honey. The second important item is the cooking. The fat must have ceased to make all noise and be perfectly boiling. Oil and fat are perfectly still and silent when at boiling point. This is the great mistake the unedu- cated or badly trained cooks make ; they fancy as soon as the fat bubbles it must be boiling ; they pop in the fish, and the whole thing is spoilt. The frying mediums are various. Oil attains_ the greatest degree of heat without burning, and