Clam Chowder

Put into boiling water from fifty to a hundred of the small sand clams; and when all their shells have opened, take them out, as they are then sufficiently boiled. Extract all the hard, or tough, uneatable part, and throw it away. Slice thin as much salt pork as, when fried in the bottom of a large pot, will produce half a pint of liquid or gravy. Take out all the pork, leaving the liquid in the pot. Add to it a layer of clams. Then a layer of biscuit soaked in milk or warm water. Next another layer of clams; then another layer of soaked biscuit; then more clams. Season it with pepper and mace. If there is no objection to onions, add three or four boiled and sliced, and some minced majoram. Also, some potatos, boiled, peeled, and quartered. Let the last layer be clams, and then cover the whole with a good paste, and bake it in an iron oven, or boil it in an iron pot.

Chowder of fresh codfish, halibut, sea-bass, or any other good fish, is made as above. Halibut requires a much larger portion of seasoning, and a little more pork. Though very large and therefore very profitable, it is in itself the most tasteless of all fish. Plain boiled halibut is not worth eating.

Salmon

In choosing a salmon, see that the gills are a fine red, the eyes full, the scales clear, and the whole fish stiff; the flesh being of the peculiar red known as salmon-color. Between the flakes is a substance called the curd, which gives it firmness. By keeping, this substance melts down and the flesh becomes soft. A salmon can only be eaten in perfection on the sea-coast where it was caught, and on the same day. To transport it any distance, it must be enclosed in a box, and well packed in ice. In America, salmon is found in the greatest perfection on the coast of Maine, in the Kennebec. Very fine ones are brought to Boston market. They also abound on the coasts of California and Oregon. The Ame-rican salmon is much larger than those of Europe.

It is so fine a fish that its own flavor is better than any that can be communicated except by the most simple sauce. It requires as much boiling as meat, that is, a quarter of an hour for every pound. It is in season from May till August or September.

The lake salmon is good, but inferior to that of the ocean, in size, richness, and color.

In boiling a large fish, to judge if it is done, draw up the strainer or fish-plate, and with a thin knife try if the flesh separates easily from the bone. If you can loosen it immediately, it is cooked enough. It injures a fish to let it get cool in the water.

Boiled Salmon

After carefully emptying the salmon, wash it very clean from the blood inside, and remove the scales. To preserve the fine color of the salmon, or to set the curd or creamy substance between the flakes, it should be put into boiling water, allowing to a gallon of water a handful of salt. After the water has been boiling a few minutes, and has been skimmed, put in the fish, (laying it on the drainer,) and let it boil moderately fast, skimming it well. It must be thoroughly boiled. Underdone fish of every kind is disgusting: and unwholesome. Before it is taken from the fish kettle ascertain if it is sufficiently cooked, by trying if the back-bone easily loosens from the flesh. A quarter of an hour may be allowed for each pound, for a large thick salmon requires as much cooking as meat.

When you take it up, drain it well, and serve it up immediately. Have ready some lobster sauce, or shrimp, if more convenient. To make it, mince the meat of a boiled lobster, mashing the coral with it, and mix it with melted or drawn butter, made very thick, and having but a very small portion of water. For shrimp sauce, boil the shrimps, take off their heads, and squeeze out their bodies from the shells. Thicken with them the drawn butter. Nothing should go with salmon that will interfere with the flavor of this fine fish, or give it any taste that will overpower or weaken its own.

Many prefer salmon with nothing more than cold butter spread on after it is helped. We think, ourselves, that when the butter is very good, it is not improved (for salmon) by the addition of flour and water; and a very little is sufficient. You need use nothing from the castors except cayenne.

It is usual to eat cucumbers with salmon, and no other Vegetables; the cucumbers to be pared, sliced, laid in cold water, and dressed, and served up by themselves, with a little plate for each person, that the vinegar, etc, of the cucumbers may not impart too much acid to the salmon.

In places remote from the sea, a whole salmon is seldom seen at table but at dinner parties, or at good hotels. In a very hot climate it should not be seen at all. When in season, it can be bought in any quantity by the pound, for a small family. For a small dinner company, from four to six pounds will suffice.

Cook salmon-trout in the same manner. Large fish should be helped with a silver fish trowel.