manner, and meets with less attention than the comfort of
a good meal requires. A fryingpan should be about four inches deep, with
a perfectly flat and thick bottom, and perpendicular sides. When used it
should be half filled with fat, for good frying is in fact, boiling in
fat. To make sure that the pan is quite clean, rub a little fat over it,
then make it warm, and wipe it out with a clean cloth. Great care must
be taken in frying, never to use any oil, butter, lard, or drippings,
but what is quite clean, fresh, and free from salt. Any thing dirty
spoils the appearance, any thing bad tasted or stale spoils the flavour,
and salt prevents its browning. Fine olive oil is the most delicate for
frying, but it is very expensive, and bad oil spoils every thing that is
dressed with it. For general purposes, and especially for fish, clean
fresh lard is not near so expensive as oil or clarified butter, and does
almost as well, except for collops and cutlets. Butter often burns
before any one is aware, and what is fried with it will get a dark and
dirty appearance. Dripping, if nicely clean and fresh, is almost as good
as any thing: if not clean, it may easily be clarified. Whatever fat be
used, let it remain in the pan a few minutes after frying, and then pour
it through a sieve into a clean bason. If not burnt, it will be found
much better than it was at first; but the fat in which fish has been
fried, will not serve any other purpose. To fry fish, parsley, potatoes,
or any thing that is watery, the fire must be very clear, and the fat
quite hot, which will be the case when it has done hissing. Fish will
neither be firm nor crisp, nor of a good colour, unless the fat be of a
proper heat. To determine this, throw a little bit of bread into the
pan: if it fries crisp, the fat is ready: if it burns the bread, it is
too hot. Whatever is fried before the fat is hot enough, will be pale
and sodden, and offend the palate and the stomach, as well as the eye.
The fat also must be thoroughly drained from the fry, especially from
such things as are dressed in bread crumbs, or the flavour will be
impaired. The dryness of fish depends much upon its having been fried in
fat of a due degree of heat, they are then crisp and dry in a few
minutes after being taken out of the pan: when they are not, lay them on
a soft cloth before the fire, and turn them till they are dry.

FRIED CARP. Scale, draw, and wash them clean; dry them in flour, and f