g them in well, and lay
them round in a Pot or strong crust upon a good Lare of Butter, and store
of Onions every where about them, and chiefly a good company in the middle.
Then put more Butter upon them, covering the pot with a fit cover, and so
set them into a quick oven, that is strongly heated; where they will
require three or four hours (at least) baking. When they are taken out of
the oven and begin to cool, pour store of melted Butter upon them, to fill
up the pot at least three fingers breadth above the fish, and then let it
cool and harden; And thus it will keep a year, if need be, so the Butter be
not opened, nor craked, that the air get into the fish.

To eat them presently, They dress them thus: When they are prepared, as
abovesaid, (ready for baking) boil them with store of Salt and gross
Pepper, and many Onions, in no more water, then is necessary to cover them,
as when you boil a Carp or Pike _au Court bouillon_. In half or three
quarters of an hour, they will be boiled tender. Then take them and drain
them from the water, and serve them with thickened Butter, and some of the
Onions minced into it, and a little Pepper, laying the fish upon some
sippets of spungy bread, that may soak up the water, if any come from the
fish; and pour butter upon the fish; so serve it up hot.

TO DRESS STOCK FISH, SOMEWHAT DIFFERINGLY FROM THE WAY OF HOLLAND

Beat the fish very well with a large Woodden-Mallet, so as not to break it,
but to loosen all the flakes within. It is the best way to have them beaten
with hard heavy Ropes. And though thus beaten, they will keep a long time,
if you put them into Pease straw, so thrust in as to keep them from all
air, and that they touch not one another, but have straw enough between
every fish. When you will make the best dish of them, take only the tails,
and tye up half a dozen or eight of them with White-thred. First, they must
be laid to soak over night in cold water. About an hour and half, (or a
little more) before they are to be eaten, put them to boil in a pot or
Pipkin, that you may cover with a cover of Tin or Letton so close, that no
steam can get out; and lay a stone or other weight upon it, to keep the
cover from being driven off by the steam of the water. Put in no more
water, then well to cover them. They must never boil strongly, but very
leasurely and but simpringly. It will be near half an hour before the water
begin to boil so: And from their beginning to do so,