Filet of Bass.—Wash and wipe the filets dry with a clean towel, trimming away the fins with a pair of large scissors close to the filet. Dust with salt and lay in a covered dish with a minced onion, the juice of half a lemon and a bit of finely cut parsley and thyme. Let them stand half an hour. Twenty minutes before serving wipe dry again, dust lightly with flour, dip in well-beaten egg, then roll in fine bread crumbs. When all are prepared, put in greased bag and cook twenty minutes until a delicate brown. Arrange on a warm dish and serve with parsley and lemon or sauce tartare. Filets of sole may be cooked in the same way.

Baked Blue Fish.—Clean thoroughly, cut off head and tail and fill with a soft bread stuffing. Tie up securely, rub over the outside of the fish with sweet vegetable oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add a squeeze of lemon juice and slip into the greased bag. Seal and cook from twenty to forty minutes according to weight. Serve with sliced lemon rolled in fine cut parsley.

A Breakfast Dish of Bloaters.—Few people know how very nice smoked and dried fish can be when cooked in a paper bag and seasoned in the French fashion. Cut off the head and tail of the fish, loosen the skin at the neck with a knife and holding it firmly between the knife and finger, pull it off. Split the fish with a sharp knife, remove the backbone and soak in cold water over night, or if you forget to do that, for twenty minutes in water nearly at the boiling point. Arrange the filets in a wooden baking dish, cover with milk, dot with bits of butter, put in bag and bake in a hot oven for fifteen minutes. Garnish with a little finely chopped parsley or sprigs of water cress and serve with paper-bag baked potatoes. On a cool morning there are few more appetizing breakfast dishes, while its cheapness puts it within the reach of the most impecunious. For a change the filets may be baked in buttered paper cases or cooked au gratin still in paper bags.

Cat Fish.—For the small sized cat fish—clean, wash, dry well, salt and pepper inside and out, then grease well with butter or vegetable oil and roll in fine, sifted bread crumbs or corn meal. Lay in a well-greased bag on thin sliced bacon, put a few more slices of bacon on top. Seal and cook half an hour.

Codfish Cones.—"Pick up" enough salt codfish to make two cupfuls of the shreds. Cover with cold water and let stand for two hours, then drain, make a cream sauce, using two level tablespoonfuls each butter and flour, and one cupful of hot milk. Mash and season enough hot boiled potatoes to measure two cupfuls, add sauce and fish and beat well with a fork. Shape in small cones, brush with melted butter, dredge with fine bread crumbs and put in a paper bag. Cook ten minutes. If desired some thin slices of bacon can be cooked at the same time in a separate bag and be used as a garnish for the cones.

Codfish À la CrÊme.—Cook the fish first in boiling salted water which has been very slightly acidulated with vinegar. Let it cook until the flesh separates from the bones. After draining thoroughly and removing the skin and bones, break the flesh into large flakes. Pour a highly seasoned white sauce over it. It may now be cooked in a wooden baking dish in the bag, or it may be prepared as follows: Press it into the form of an oblong mould, using only just enough sauce to hold the flakes together. Not as much sauce is needed as when the fish is browned in a baking dish. Brush the top liberally with melted butter, sprinkle with rolled cracker crumbs. Put the mold in a paper bag in the oven, and let the fish acquire a nutty, crisp crust. Send to the table garnished with lemon and parsley or thin slices of tomato and a few sprays of water cress.

Paper Bagged Eels.—Eels may be cooked in a paper bag without growing as hard as they are apt to do as ordinarily treated. Allow one-half pound of eels (after they are dressed) to a person. Wash them thoroughly, removing all blood from slit in eels. Cut in two-inch pieces, put in a dish and sprinkle a teaspoonful of salt to every pound over them. Now pour over them boiling water, enough to cover well, and let stand until water is cold. Pour water off and leave eels where they will drain until nearly dry. Take sufficient Indian meal to roll them in, add a little pepper to it and roll each piece until well covered. Place in a well-greased bag and cook about twenty minutes, when they will be a rich brown, thoroughly cooked and deliciously juicy.

Flounder À la MeuniÉre.—Chop a small shallot and mix with a teaspoonful of anchovy paste, a squeeze of lemon juice, an ounce of butter, a little chopped parsley, a dash of cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Put the fish with the seasoning inside of a well-buttered bag, after dredging the fish with flour. Pour a tablespoonful of melted butter over the fish, seal up and cook. A two-pound fish, whole, requires thirty minutes. The same weight of filets cook in eight minutes.

Filets of Flounder.—Remove the filets from a medium sized flounder and cut each filet in two. Season with salt and pepper and a few drops of lemon juice and fold each filet in two or roll up skin side inwards. Put a small piece of butter, or a teaspoonful of vegetable oil on top of each and place carefully in the well-greased bag. Seal the mouth of the bag, and cook about ten minutes on the wire grid in a hot oven.

Remove from the bag, lift carefully on to a hot platter, garnish with water cress or parslied lemon slices and serve.

Finnan Haddie.—Pick out a fish that is thick through the centre, weighing about two pounds. Soak in cold water, after washing well, for an hour. Brush all over with melted butter, dredge with flour, put in a well-buttered bag, skin side down, dot with butter and pour over it a cup of hot milk. Seal securely and bake in a very hot oven twenty minutes. The fish may be served whole, or flaked—free from bones and skin—and served with cream sauce.

Finnan Haddie.—Prepare in the regular way, lay in wood cookery dish, skin side down, season with bits of butter, add a small cupful of warm milk, put in bag and seal. Bake twenty-five minutes and serve from the dish with cream sauce. This eliminates the washing of dishes with the strong fishy odor.

Fish Cakes.—Use for this two cupfuls cold fish freed from skin and bones and chopped fine, and the same amount of cooked, seasoned and mashed potatoes. Mix well, season with salt and pepper, add two tablespoonfuls vegetable oil or melted butter and two tablespoonfuls of milk. Whip the mixture until as "light as feathers." Shape into small, flat cakes of even size. Beat up an egg on a plate, then egg the cakes and roll deftly in the finest of sifted bread crumbs and again shape. Put in well-greased bag, seal and put in a hot oven. Cook about twenty minutes.

New England Fish Pie.—Have a pound of cod steak boned and cut in pieces. Roll each piece in slightly salted flour, and season with paprika or white pepper. Lay in the well-greased bag and put on top of the fish a layer of oysters with their juice and a squeeze of lemon juice. Sprinkle with a layer of finely rolled and buttered cracker crumbs, dot with a few bits of butter, seal the bag and bake slowly fifteen minutes. Have ready some hot mashed potato well seasoned with cream and butter. Take the grid and bag from the oven, tear off the top of the bag, spread the potato over the fish like a crust, brush over with a little milk mixed with a portion of an egg yolk and set back in oven for five minutes to brown and glaze, turning the grid with the bag twice during the cooking. Cut open the bag, put the fish balls on a hot platter, garnish and serve plain with a tomato sauce.

Fish SoufflÉ.—One pint of boiled halibut or other delicate fish, freed from bones and skin and mashed to a pulp. Season with one small teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and one teaspoonful of onion juice. Melt a large tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, and cook in it for three minutes a tablespoonful of flour. Add slowly a cupful of milk and the seasoned fish pulp. Beat two eggs thoroughly and add the fish to them. Pour all into bag, seal and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven, half an hour.

Planked Fish Bag-Cooked.—Planked fish responds beautifully to the paper-bag treatment, and there is no better way of developing the distinctive flavor of any of the delicate white-meated fish. The plank however should not be as thick as that usually required. It must be of hard-wood, hickory, cherry, live oak, cedar or ash—well seasoned and sawed about a half inch in thickness, rounded and tapered at one end like an ironing board. This to accommodate the tail of the fish. If cooking small fish use the oval wood cooking dishes made of maple wood.

Make it very hot in the oven or under the gas flame, then grease well with vegetable oil, olive or the refined cotton seed, and lay on it the fish cleaned, split down the back, seasoned, oiled all over with the sweetest of vegetable oils or butter and spread out as flat as possible with the skin side next to the hot board. Slip into the greased bag and fasten tightly. If you use the gas oven for planking your fish, as most of us do, turn on both burners until the oven is very hot. Then set in the fish with a trivet under the bag the same as if you were cooking without the plank.

Bake from thirty to forty-five minutes, then serve piping hot on the plank which has been taken out of the bag, set on a big japanned tray and garnished with hot mashed potato pressed through a tube in rose fashion at regular intervals, alternating with mounds of peas or carrot dice, sprigs of watercress or parsley and thin slices of lemon rolled in fine minced parsley. Accompany with sauce tartare or parsley butter.

Halibut À la Poulette.—Take two pounds of halibut, arrange in filets, freeing from skin and bone; then cut into narrow strips. Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice; cut two onions in slices and lay on the filets, then set away for half an hour. At the end of this time have ready one-third cup melted butter or refined vegetable oil. Dip the filets in this, roll, skewer into shape and dredge with flour. Arrange in a well-buttered bag, seal and bake twenty minutes in a moderate oven. Serve with white sauce and two hard boiled eggs, sliced for a garnish.

Herring au Gratin.—Soak and filet the herring. Butter a bag and strew the bottom with the bread crumbs well-buttered, a layer of grated cheese and a little minced chives or parsley. Sprinkle with pepper and lay in the filets of herring, plain or alternately with sliced tomato. Cover with more crumbs, parsley, cheese and butter, close the bag, and bake fifteen minutes until a good brown.

Herrings With Herbs.—Take four dried herrings, bone them, fill the cavities with a little (about half a teaspoonful to each fish) finely minced shallot or chives, and parsley. Add a few fresh breadcrumbs and tiny bits of butter. If liked, a tiny grate of nutmeg may be added as well as a good dust of pepper. Put into a well-greased bag and bake in the oven for ten minutes. Dish up and serve as hot as possible. Other dried fish are excellent prepared in the same way.

Kedgeree.—Mix one cup of shredded fish with one cupful of boiled rice, tender and well drained. Put into a well-buttered wooden baking dish, while you prepare the sauce. Put into a saucepan one tablespoonful each of butter and flour and as soon as melted and "bubbly," add one cup of hot milk. Stir until smooth and thick, season with salt and pepper, take from the fire, add the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, that have been rubbed through a sieve, pour over the rice and fish. Put the dish in a well-buttered bag and set in the oven until thoroughly hot and delicately browned.

Kippered Mackerel With Fine Herbs.—Cut salt mackerel into filets, lay them in a deep earthen dish and cover with boiling water. Leave in water half a minute. Take out, wipe dry, dust with coarse black pepper and put on top of each filet half a teaspoonful of minced parsley and chives or onion and a bit of butter the size of a small walnut. Grease a bag well, put in the filets; seal and cook for twenty minutes in a hot oven. Serve hot, with brown bread and butter.

Salmon Loaf.—Mince one can of salmon, removing all bits of bone. Add to it a cupful fine, stale bread crumbs, two beaten eggs, a half cupful milk and salt, pepper, parsley and lemon juice to season. Put in a wooden mould in a buttered bag and bake or steam for half an hour. Turn out and serve hot with a white or Hollandaise sauce.

Scalloped Salmon.—Put a layer of soft grated bread crumbs in the bottom of a wooden baking dish that has been well-buttered. Sprinkle the bread crumbs with salt, pepper and bits of butter. Cover with a layer of flaked salmon, seasoning with salt and pepper and pouring in some of the oil and liquor from the can. Over this spread another layer of the seasoned crumbs, then more salmon and so on until the dish is filled. Let the last layer be of buttered crumbs moistening slightly with a little milk. Spread a little soft butter over the surface and bake in a buttered bag for half an hour in a hot oven to a rich brown.

Salmon SoufflÉ.—Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and melt without browning. Add one tablespoonful of flour, stir until blended, then pour in one cup of warm milk. When thickened and smooth, add the yolk of one egg, one cup of salmon flaked, a tablespoonful of cream and a tiny bit of essence of anchovy and pepper to season. Mix carefully and well, fold in the white of one egg beaten until stiff and dry; then fill ramekins or wooden dish three-quarters full. Put in a bag and brown in a quick oven. Serve very hot. Chopped parsley may be added if desired.

Baked Shad.—In dressing the fish, cut as small an opening as possible. Wash well, dry and fill with a dressing made in this way. Pour over one cupful dry bread crumbs enough cold water or milk to moisten. Add a teaspoonful melted butter, and a teaspoonful minced parsley. Mix thoroughly and fill the fish, sewing or skewering the opening together. Use a wood cookery dish and put into a buttered bag two or three slices of wafer-thin salt pork and having salted and peppered the outside of the fish lay carefully on top the sliced pork. Lay as many more thin slices on top of the fish, or wipe over with olive oil. Seal, set in the oven and bake three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven. Serve with sauce tartare or a good brown sauce enriched with a small glass of Madeira.

Shad Roe.—As soon as the fish comes from the water or market, plunge the roe into boiling salted water to which a tablespoonful of lemon juice or vinegar has been added. Cook gently about ten minutes, lift out with a skimmer and slip into a bowl of ice water to become firm. When ready to cook, split lengthwise if plump and full, brush over with olive oil, melted butter or refined cotton seed oil, and tuck at once into the well-greased bag. Some cooks prefer to dust the roe with fine bread crumbs, lay into beaten egg, then dust once more with sifted crumbs before "bagging". Serve simply with lemon and cress, with sauce tartare or mayonnaise, or with a sauce prepared as follows: Put into a saucepan two tablespoonfuls butter or olive oil, one tablespoonful lemon juice, and chopped parsley, and a teaspoonful Worcestershire sauce. Heat to the boiling point and pour over the roe.

Smelts.—Smelts skewered in rings, using a wooden toothpick to hold heads and tails together, dipped in milk, well floured and fried in deep fat, make an attractive fish course. The use of a wood cookery dish here is strongly recommended. The skewer can be removed before serving, as the fish will usually keep its shape. Garnish the plate on which the fish are served with cress and slices of lemon rolled in finely minced parsley. If the smelts are to furnish the main part of the meal, pile them in the center of a hot platter and surround with a border of mashed potato, or mound the potato and circle with the fish for a border.

Bagged Weak Fish.—Well grease a bag, with butter or vegetable oil. Prepare a weak fish as for frying by seasoning with salt, pepper and dredging well with flour. Rub melted butter on both sides, place it in the bag, skin side down, lightly dredge the upper side again with flour and dot with butter. Peel and cut an onion in half, put in the bag but not on the fish. Close the bag, seal and cook on the wire rack or broiler in a hot oven for twenty-five minutes.

White Fish Planked.—Remove the head and tail and bone of the fish. Wash carefully and place in wooden cookery dish, skin side down. Season with salt, pepper, bits of butter and chopped onion. Roll a half dozen oysters in cracker crumbs, place on top of fish, and put the dish in the bag. Bake forty minutes. Set the wooden dish on a hot platter and serve. The skin of the fish and remnants can be left in the dish which can then be thrown away. Halibut and mackerel are especially fine when prepared in these wood cookery dishes as it holds them intact in process of cooking and serving.