TROLLING V/ITH DEAD GORGE-BAIT. 199 



Bat and Ball inn, Braemore. The sauce, it will be seen, plays 

 the part of Hamlet : 



Cut the fillets, and after covering them with plenty of eggs and 

 bread-crumbs, fry them over a brisk fire till thoroughly browned. 

 Then pour over them a gravy made thus : 



After removing the fillets, lay the bone and trimmings in a 

 stewpan with two shalots and a small bunch of parsley, stew them 

 for one hour, and strain the liquor, which add to the following 

 sauce. Put two ounces of butter over the fire ; when melted, add 

 the above liquor, and also one tablespoonful of flour, one tea- 

 spoonful of soy, one dessertspoonful of anchovy, one of Worcester- 

 shire sauce, and a little salt. 



This is the best way that I know of for cooking pike up to 

 4 lbs. weight or so ; above that I am inclined to think that 

 stuffing and baking with a rich sauce is better. The beauty of- 

 filleting is that if well and carefully done, the whole or nearly 

 the whole of the bones are got out by the cook, avoiding a loss 

 of time and the chance of being choked. Pike plainly filleted 

 and cooked, according to the first part of Mrs. Robertson's 

 receipt, even without the sauce, forms an excellent dish, but — 

 as, indeed, in all fish cookery — it must be served ' straight off 

 the fire,' as the experienced chef oi the Caf6 de Paris at Monaco 

 once expressed it to me. 



Another good way of treating large pike is to boil them and 

 let them get cold, when the flesh, or rather fish, will break easily 

 up into flakes which, when fried with a little fresh butter, plenty 

 of pepper and salt (added continually whilst frying, N.B.) and 

 dredged over with flour or oatmeal, will be found to make a 

 capital dish. 



The French pike, according to Bellonius, are long and thin 

 in the belly, and those of Italy particularly given to corpulence 

 in the same region. In fact, the whole question of goodness 

 or badness of the pike is contained in these words : ' The food 

 makes the fish.' Where there is good and cleanly feed, and 

 plenty of it, there will be well-grown and edible pike : where 

 there is none, they will be of the frog ' froggy.' 



