Sunday, March 8, 2015

Compliments of the Season

(Japanese matchbox from Agence Eureka)

Some selections suitable for Lent.

SCALLOPED FISH.

2 hard-cooked eggs
2 cups medium white sauce
2 cups flaked cooked fish
salt and pepper
1 cup buttered bread crumbs

Rub egg yolks through sieve and chop egg whites.  Mix well with white sauce.  Arrange alternate layers of fish and sauce in greased baking dish.  Season fish with salt and pepper.  Cover with buttered crumbs.  Bake in moderate oven (350⁰ F) 20 minutes or until crumbs are browned.  Serves 4.

FISH TIMBALES

1 cup cooked fish
1/2 cup cooked mushrooms
1 cup bread crumbs
2 cups milk
1/3 cup butter
salt and pepper
few grains nutmeg
4 eggs, beaten

Remove skin and bones from fish, add mushrooms and chop very fine.  Rub through sieve.  Cook crumbs and milk in double boiler 10 minutes.  Add butter and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Add fish and beaten eggs.  Pour into greased molds or custard cups.  Bake in moderate oven (350⁰ F) until firm, about 30 minutes.  Unmold and serve with hollandaise sauce or tomato sauce.  Serves 4.

This mixture may be baked in a large mold, about 60 minutes.

FISH SOUFFLE

1 teaspoon onion juice*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 cup medium white sauce
2 eggs, separated
1 cup flaked cooked fish

Add onion juice, salt and pepper to white sauce.  Stir in beaten egg yolks and flaked fish.  Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into mixture.  our into greased baking dish and place in pan of hot water.  Bake in moderate oven (350⁰ F) 60 minutes.  Serve from the same dish.  Serves 4.

KEDGEREE

2 cups flaked cooked fish
1 cup cooked rice
2 hard-cooked eggs
4 tablespoons butter
salt and pepper

Heat fish, rice and chopped egg whites in butter.  Season and sprinkle with sieved egg yolks.  Serves 6.

(*often called for in mid-century American cooking.  Why not just mince an onion and be done with it?)

From The American Woman's Cook Book, edited by Ruth Berolzheimer, 1950.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The timbales look interesting, actually, as does kedgeree . . . but I loathe white sauce, especially with hard-cooked egg whites in it. That's probably the biggest thing I don't get about mid-20th-century women's-magazine recipes (and a few 19th-century ones as well) - fish is considered boring, so add white sauce and make it even MORE bland-looking??

Shay said...

American cooking fell in love with white sauce sometime before WWI and the affair lasted until the 1950s (when canned cream of mushroom soup took it's place). On the rare occasions when I make white sauce I always sneak a spoonful of Worcestershire sauce in.