Fried Soles, Tartar Sauce

As a postulate, please to remember, Housekeeper and Cook, that one sauce should never be followed by another of the same colour. To do so is as false blazonry as it is in heraldry to put tincture on tincture or metal on metal.

Your sole should be plainly fried. It is perhaps better to fry it in a mixture of lard and oil, since the milk remaining in the butter is sure to burn. the only way to use butter for frying is to clarify it, but that costs money. Lard by itself is quite good enough; but be careful that it is entirely clean, and that it does not burn. If you will get over your prejudices you can fry your sole, and indeed, any kind of fish, in oil, as the Italians and the Jews do. The Jews, by the way, fry fish better than any other people in the world. They turn out, fried, not only soles, but dabs, plaice, whiting, brill, smelts, etc., of a beautiful golden tint. Be careful to procure the very best Lucca salad oil from a first-class Italian warehouse.

Begin by cutting off' the fins of your sole, and dipping it in flour; then egg-and-bread-crumbs it, but don't put it in grease until this is boiling hot; allow the sole ten minutes to fry or less, according to size.