lso two table-spoonfuls of port wine, and one of mushroom
catchup, or cavice: stir it into the sauce by degrees, give it a boil,
and strain it to the fish through a sieve.

N.B. If mushroom sauce (Nos. 225, 305, or 333), or white sauce (No.
364--2), be used instead of beef gravy, this will be one of the most
relishing maigre dishes we know.

_Obs._ To kill eels instantly, without the horrid torture of cutting and
skinning them alive, pierce the spinal marrow, close to the back part of
the skull, with a sharp-pointed skewer: if this be done in the right
place, all motion will instantly cease. The humane executioner does
certain criminals the favour to hang them before he breaks them on the
wheel.

_To fry Eels._--(No. 165.)

Skin and gut them, and wash them well in cold water, cut them in pieces
four inches long, season them with pepper and salt; beat an egg well on
a plate, dip them in the egg, and then in fine bread-crumbs; fry them in
fresh, clean lard; drain them well from the fat; garnish with crisp
parsley. For sauce, plain and melted butter, sharpened with lemon-juice,
or parsley and butter.

_Spitchocked Eels._--(No. 166.)

This the French cooks call the English way of dressing eels.

Take two middling-sized silver eels, leave the skin on, scour them with
salt, and wash them, cut off the heads, slit them on the belly side,
and take out the bones and guts, and wash and wipe them nicely; then cut
them into pieces about three inches long, and wipe them quite dry; put
two ounces of butter into a stew-pan with a little minced parsley,
thyme, sage, pepper, and salt, and a very little chopped eschalot; set
the stew-pan over the fire; when the butter is melted, stir the
ingredients together, and take it off the fire, mix the yelks of two
eggs with them, and dip the eel in, a piece at a time, and then roll
them in bread-crumbs, making as much stick to them as you can; then rub
the gridiron with a bit of suet, set it high over a very clear fire, and
broil your eels of a fine crisp brown. Dish them with crisp parsley, and
send up with plain butter in a boat, and anchovy and butter.

_Obs._ We like them better with the skin off; it is very apt to offend
delicate stomachs.

_Mackerel boiled._[183-*]--(No. 167.)

This fish loses its life as soon as it leaves the sea, and the fresher
it is the better.

Wash and clean them thoroughly (the fishmongers seldom do this
sufficiently), put them into cold water with