Part 65 (1/2)

_To marinate Conger._

Scald and draw it, cut it into pieces, and fry it in the best sallet oyl you can get; being fried put it in a little barrel that will contain it; then have some fryed bay-leaves, large mace, slic't ginger, and a few whole cloves, lay these between the fish, put to it white-wine, vinegar, and salt, close up the head, and keep it for your use.

_To souce Conger._

Take a good fat conger, draw it at two several, vents or holes, being first scalded and the fins shaved off, cut it into three or four pieces, then have a pan of fair water, and make it boil, put in the fish, with a good quant.i.ty of salt, and let it boil very softly half an hour: being tender boil'd, set it by for your use for present spending; but to keep it long, boil it with as much wine as water, and a quart of white-wine vinegar.

_To souce Conger in Collars like Brawn._

Take the fore part of a conger from the gills, splat it, and take out the bone, being first flayed and scalded, then have a good large eel or two, flay'd also and boned, seasoned in the inside with minced nutmeg, mace, and salt, seasoned and cold with the eel in the inside, bind it up hard in a clean cloth, boil it in fair water, white-wine and salt.

_To roast Conger._

Take a good fat conger, draw it, wash it, and sc.r.a.pe off the slime, cut off the fins, and spit it like an S. draw it with rosemary and time, put some beaten nutmeg in his belly, salt, some stripped time, and some great oysters parboil'd, roast it with the skin on, and save the gravy for the sauce, boil'd up with a little claret-wine, beaten b.u.t.ter, wine vinegar, and an anchove or two, the fat blown off, and beat up thick with some sweet b.u.t.ter, two or three slices of an orange, and elder vinegar.

Or roast it in short pieces, and spit it with bay-leaves between, stuck with rosemary. Or make venison sauce, and instead of roasting it on a spit, roast it in an oven.

_To broil Conger._

Take a good fat conger being scalded and cut into pieces; salt them, and broil them raw; or you may broil them being first boiled and basted with b.u.t.ter, or steeped in oyl and vinegar, broil them raw, and serve them with the same sauce you steeped them in, bast them with rosemary, time, and parsley, and serve them with the sprigs of those herbs about them, either in beaten b.u.t.ter, vinegar, or oyl and vinegar, and the foresaid herbs: or broil the pieces splatted like a spitch-c.o.c.k of an eel, with the skin on it.

_To fry Conger._

Being scalded, and the fins shaved off, splat it, cut it into rouls round the conger, flour it, and fry it in clarified b.u.t.ter crisp, sauce it with b.u.t.ter beaten with vinegar, juyce of orange or lemon, and serve it with fryed parsley, fryed ellicksanders, or clary in b.u.t.ter.

_To bake Conger in Pasty proportion._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

_In Pye Proportion._

Bake it any way of the sturgeon, as you may see in the next Section, to be eaten either hot or cold, and make your pies according to these forms.

_To stew a Lump._

Take it either flayed (or not) and boil it, being splated in a dish with some white-wine, a large mace or two, salt, and a whole onion, stew them well together, and dish them on fine sippets, run it over with some beaten b.u.t.ter, beat up with two or three slices of an orange, and some of the gravy of the fish, run it over the lump, and garnish the meat with slic't lemon, grapes, barberries, or gooseberries.

_To bake a Lump._

Take a lump, and cut it into pieces, skin and all, or flay it, and part it in two pieces of a side, season it with nutmeg, pepper, and salt, and lay it in the pye, lay on it a bay-leaf or two, three or four blades of large mace, the slices of an orange, gooseberries, grapes, barberries, and b.u.t.ter, close it up and bake it, being baked liquor it with beaten b.u.t.ter.