Shad Recipe

Fresh shad are good baked or boiled, but better broiled. For broiling,

they should have a good deal of salt and pepper sprinkled on the inside

of them, and remain several hours before broiling. The spawn and liver

are good boiled or fried. Salt shad and mackerel, for broiling, should

be soaked ten or twelve hours in cold water. Salt shad, for boiling,

need not be soaked only long enough to get off the scales, without you

like them quite fresh--if so, turn boiling water on them, and let them

soak in it an hour--then put them into fresh boiling water, and boil

them twenty minutes. To pickle shad, mix one pound of sugar, a peck of

rock salt, two quarts of blown salt, and a quarter of a pound of

salt-petre. Allow this quantity to every twenty-five shad. Put a layer

of the mixture at the bottom of the keg, then a layer of cleaned shad,

with the skin side down. Sprinkle on another layer of salt, sugar, and

salt-petre, and so on till you get in all the shad. Lay a heavy weight

on the shad, to keep it under the brine. If the juice of the shad does

not run out so as to form brine sufficient to cover them, in the course

of a week, make a little brine, and turn on to them.