Cleaning Codfish

When cleaning codfish, first remove the gills.

It is usual first to remove the gills by cutting their connection with the rest of the head and shoulders and pulling them out. Lay the fish on his back, open the belly by cutting down the center, remove the inside, carefully preserving the liver and roe, and leaving the sounds uninjured. If the fish is to be cooked whole it should be "scored" to the bone transversely at intervals of two inches; but if it is to be cooked in pieces, cut it in slices three inches thick and soak the fish in water for a quarter of an hour. Cod is crimped by being cut up and notched with a knife while partly alive; but some cooks object to this. The following recipes for cooking cod are carefully selected as likely to give sufficient variety to suit all tastes and to all purposes. The fish is usually divided, by the fishmonger, into "head and shoulders," "middle" and "tail;" but although preference may be given to the middle cut, the tail is quite as good, although not so fleshy, and the head yields in quantity the gelatine that makes excellent soup. Codlings are for the most part amenable to the same treatment.