serve it. They have the fish thoroughly washed and drawn, and then cooked with the scales and fins on. You can judge how easy it would be to do that, because you saw how easily that skin came off this fish. The skin comes off-easily if the fish is properly cooked—cooked enough.

Question. What kind of fish can be cooked with the scales on?

Miss Corson. I think the black bass, and some kinds of sea fish. The idea is that if the fish are not scaled they will keep their flavor; a fish properly dressed retains enough of its flavor even if it is scalded before it is cooked.

OMELETTES.

First, I will make a plain breakfast omelette. Use for two or three people not more than three eggs. You can not very well manage more than three in an ordinary pan. It is better to make several omelettes, especially because people are not apt to come to the table all at once, and an omelette to be nice must be eaten directly it is cooked. Say three eggs; break them into a cup or bowl; add to them a saltspoonful of salt, quarter of a saltspoonful of pepper, and mix them just enough to thoroughly break the whites and yolks together. Put over the fire a frying pan with a heaping teaspoonful of butter in it. Let the butter get hot. If you like an omelette brown let the butter begin to brown. After pouring the eggs into the hot frying pan break the omelette on the bottom of the pan with a fork, just a little, so that you let the uncooked part run down on the bottom of the pan. I do not mean to stir the omelette as you would scrambled eggs, but just break it a little until it is cooked as much as you want it. French breakfast omelettes are always cooked so that they are slightly juicy in the middle; in order to accomplish that result of course you have them still liquid before you begin to turn them. When the omelette is done as much as you want it run a fork under one side of it and fold it half over, then fold it again; loosen it from the pan; have a platter hot, and turn the omelette out. Serve it the moment it is done.

Next I will make a light omelette. The same rule—three eggs, whites and yolks separate; beat the whites to a stiff froth; add seasoning to the yolks in the same proportion as before; mix the yolks slightly with the seasoning; after the white has been beaten quite stiff and the yolk seasoned, mix them very lightly together; have a heaping tablespoonful of butter in the frying pan over the fire, hot, just as for the plain omelette; mix the whites and the yolks together, without breaking down the white. Of course the lightness of the omelette depends on keeping all the air in the white of the egg that you have beaten into it. Put the eggs into the hot frying pan; run the fork under the omelette and lift it from the pan as it cooks; lift the cooked portions from the pan, and let them fall back on the top of the omelette, taking care not to pat the omelette down at all; but just lift the cooked portions and let them fall back on the top of the omelette, until it is done as much as you like. Usually this omelette is served soft—as soft as ice cream. When it is done as much as you want it, push it to the side of the pan, gently, and then turn it out on a hot platter. Always remember that the success of an omelette depends upon the quickness with which it is made and served; because, in the first place, you make it light by beating air into it; then, of course, the heat expands the air, and that makes the omelette still lighter; and you must get it served before the hot air escapes.

BONING QUAIL.

After the quail have been picked, cut the wings off at the first joint, cut the legs just above the joint of the drum-stick. Cut off the head, take out the crop, cut the quail down the back bone; from the inside, cut the joint where the wing joins the body; and having cut that wing joint, begin and cut close to the carcass of the bird till you get down to the leg joint, where the second joint of the leg unites with the body; break that joint, and keep on cutting the flesh from the carcass, taking care not to cut through the carcass so that you strike the intestines until you reach the ridge of the breast bone; close to the breast bone you will find that little division in the flesh of the breast which you have noticed in carving chickens and turkeys; it is called the little filet, and lies close to the breast bone; separate this natural division from the outside of the breast. Then beginning again on the other side, cut close to the carcass of the bird until you have reached the breast, as on the other side. Now the flesh is loose on both sides of the bird, and needs only to be taken off without breaking the skin of the breast. You would bone chickens and turkeys in the same way. Take the carcass out entire. Now take out the wing and leg bones from the inside. Do not tear the skin of the bird any more than you can help. Now lay the flesh on the table, with the skin down, and straighten it out a little, distributing the flesh evenly over the skin, and it is ready to stuff. If I were making boned turkey I should have it all ready, just like this, and then put the force meat in, draw the bird up over the force meat, and sew it down the back. This bird is simply going to be broiled. Season with salt and pepper. In preparing boned birds you can use any kind of force meat—a layer of sausage meat, or any kind of chopped cold meat; season it with salt and pepper. Put the birds between the bars of the wire gridiron, and broil them with a very hot fire. The gridiron should be well buttered, so that the birds can not stick. By the time the bird is broiled brown on both sides it will be done. Of course you do half a dozen or a dozen in the same way precisely. Remember, ladies, always, that to broil you should use the hottest fire you can get—the hottest and the clearest fire, because part of the success of broiling depends upon quickly cooking the outside, while the inside of anything you are broiling still remains juicy. If you had a wood fire you would broil over the fire. If you broil over the fire you must expect the blaze to rise, and you must naturally suppose the meat will be smoked; but you can make your fire clear—that is, have it alive; do not have it smoky and full of unburnt wood or coal; have a clear bed of coals if you are going to broil over the fire.

Question. Do you never wash the birds before boiling?

Answer. No; you will find that I am very un-neat about that. In the first place, I would not use a piece of meat or a bird of any kind that was really dirty enough to need washing. If it had anything on it that I could not get off by wiping with a wet cloth, I simply wouldn’t use it. If you wash meat or poultry you destroy a certain amount of its flavoring and take away some of its nourishment.

Question. Sometimes a bird shot will have a great deal of the blood settle in the breast or in the flesh.

Miss Corson. Yes; you want the blood; you want to keep the blood there. The blood is a part of the nourishment. The idea of washing meat comes from the old Hebrew prohibition which involved the removal of every particle of blood. You know that the Hebrews believed that the blood was the life and even to this day every particle of blood is taken away from their meat, not only by washing after it comes into the house, but before that by the treatment it receives from the butcher. The blood is a part of the nourishment, and you want to keep as much of it as you can; in some cooking it forms a very important part; for instance, in cooking a hare or rabbit, the blood which escapes in the dressing is saved and used.