To make water-sokey.
TAKE some of the smallest plaice or founders you can get, wash them clean, cut the fins close, put them into a stew-pan, put just water enough to boil them in, a little salt, and a bunch of parsley; when they are enough fend them to table in a soup-dish. With the liquor to keep them hot. Have parsley and butter in a cup.
To stew eels.
SKIN, gut, and wash them very clean in fix or eight waters, to wash away all the sand: then cut them in pieces, about as long as your finger, put just water enough for sauce, put in a small onion stuck with cloves, a little bundle of sweet-herbs, a blade or two of mace, and some whole pepper in a thin muslin-rag. Cover it close, and let them stew very softly.
Look at them now and then, put in a little piece of butter rolled in flour, and little chopped parsley. When you find their are quite tender and well done, take out the onion, spice, and sweet-herbs. Put in salt enough to season it. Then dish them up with the sauce.
To stew eels with broth.
CLEANSE your eels as above, put them into a sauce-pan with a blade or two of mace and a crust of bread. Put just water enough to cover them close, and let them stew very softly; when they are enough, dish them up with the broth; and have a little plain melted butter in a cup to eat the eels with. The broth will be very good, and it is fit for weakly and consumptive constitutions.
To dress a pike.
GUT it, cleanse it, and make it very clean, then turn it round with the tail in the mouth, lay it in a little dish, cut toasts three-corner-ways, fill the middle with them, flour it and stick pieces of butter all over; then throw a little more flour, and send it to the oven to bake: or it will do better in a tin-oven before the fire, then you can bake it as you will. When it is done lay it in your dish, and have ready melted butter, with an anchovy dissolved in it, and a few oysters or shrimps; and if there is any liquor in the dish it was baked in add it to the sauce, and put in just what you fancy. Pour your sauce into the dish. Garnishit
