Miss Beecher's Housekeeper and Healthkeeper. Catharine Esther Beecher
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for use. If spice is wanted, it may be tied in a linen cloth and put into the jar with the pickles, or scalded with the vinegar, and the bag thrown into the pickle-jar. If a white scum rises, take it off and scald the vinegar, and pour it back. A small lump of alum added to the vinegar improves the hardness of the cucumbers.
Pickled Walnuts.—Take a hundred nuts, an ounce of cloves, an ounce of allspice, an ounce of nutmeg, an ounce of whole pepper, an ounce of race ginger, an ounce of horse-radish, half pint of mustard-seed, and four cloves of garlic, tied in a bag.
Wipe the nuts, prick with a pin, and put them in a pot, sprinkling the spice as you lay them in; then add two table-spoonfuls of salt; boil sufficient vinegar to fill the pot, and pour it over the nuts and spice. Cover the jar close, and keep it for a year, when the pickles will be ready for use.
Butternuts may be made in the same manner, if they are taken when green, and soft enough to be stuck through with the head of a pin. Put them for a week or two in weak brine, changing it occasionally. Before putting in the brine, rub them about with a broom in brine, to cleanse the skins. Then proceed as for the walnuts.
The vinegar makes an excellent catsup.
Mangoes.—Take the latest growth of young musk-melons, cut out a small piece from one side and empty them. Scrape the outside smooth, and soak them four days in strong salt and water. If you wish to green them, put vine leaves over and under, with bits of alum, and steam them awhile. Then powder cloves, pepper, and nutmeg in equal portions, and sprinkle on the inside, and fill them with strips of horse-radish, small bits of calamus, bits of cinnamon and mace, a clove or two, a very small onion, nasturtions, and then American mustard-seed to fill the crevices. Put back the piece cut out, and sew it on, and then sew the mango in cotton cloth. Lay all in a stone jar, the cut side upward.
Boil sharp vinegar a few minutes with half a tea-cup of salt, and a table-spoonful of alum to three gallons of vinegar, and turn it on to the melons. Keep dried barberries for garnishes, and when you use them, turn a little of the above vinegar of the mangoes heated boiling hot on to them, and let them swell a few hours. Sliced and salted cabbage with this vinegar poured on hot is very good.
Fine pickled Cabbage.—Shred red and white cabbage, spread it in layers in a stone jar, with salt over each layer. Put two spoonfuls of whole black pepper, and the same quantity of allspice, cloves, and cinnamon, in a bag, and scald them in two quarts of vinegar, and pour the vinegar over the cabbage, and cover it tight. Use it in two days after.
An excellent Way of preparing Tomatoes to eat with Meat.—Peel and slice ripe tomatoes, sprinkling on a little salt as you proceed. Drain off the juice, and pour on hot spiced vinegar.
To pickle Martinoes.—Gather them when you can run a pin-head into them, and after wiping them, keep them ten days in weak brine, changing it every other day. Then wipe them, and pour over boiling spiced vinegar. In four weeks they will be ready for use. It is a fine pickle.
A convenient Way to pickle Cucumbers.—Put some spiced vinegar in a jar, with a little salt in it. Every time you gather a mess, pour boiling vinegar on them, with a little alum in it. Then put them in the spiced vinegar. Keep the same vinegar for scalding all. When you have enough, take all from the spiced vinegar, and scald in the alum vinegar two or three minutes, till green, and then put them back in the spiced vinegar.
Indiana Pickles.—Take green tomatoes, and slice them. Put them in a basket to drain in layers, with salt scattered over them, say a tea-cupful to each gallon. Next day, slice one quarter the quantity of onions, and lay the onions and tomatoes in alternate layers in a jar, with spice intervening. Then fill the jar with cold vinegar. Tomatoes picked as they ripen, and just thrown into cold spiced vinegar, are a fine pickle, and made with very little trouble.
To pickle Cauliflower, or Broccoli.—Keep them twenty-four hours in strong brine, and then take them out and heat the brine, and pour it on scalding hot, and let them stand till next day. Drain them, and throw them into spiced vinegar.
CHAPTER X.
SAUCES AND SALADS.
Success in preparing savory meats and salads depends greatly on the different sauces, and these demand extra care in preparation and in flavoring. The following is a sauce that is a great favorite, and serves for some meats, for fish, for macaroni, and for some salads:
Milk and Egg Sauce, (excellent.)—Take eight table-spoonfuls of butter and mix it with a table-spoonful of flour, add a pint of milk and heat it, stirring constantly till it thickens a little. Then beat the yelk of an egg in a table-spoonful of water and mix it well with the sauce, taking care that it does not boil, but only be very hot. For fish, add to the above a table-spoonful of vinegar or lemon-juice and a little of the peel grated. Some add parsley chopped; and for boiled fowls, add chopped oysters. Fine bread-crumbs are better than flour for thickening. For macaroni, make in the dish alternate layers with that and grated cheese, and then pour on this sauce before baking, and it is very fine. Some omit the cheese.
Drawn Butter.—Take six table-spoonfuls of butter, half a tea-spoonful of salt, two tea-spoonfuls of flour or of fine bread-crumbs worked into the butter, and one tea-cup of hot water. Heat very hot, but do not let it boil. Two hard-boiled and chopped eggs improve it much. For fish, add a table-spoonful of vinegar and chopped capers or green nasturtion seeds.
Mint Sauce for Roast Lamb.—Chop three table-spoonfuls of green mint, and add a heaping table-spoonful of sugar and half a coffee-cup of vinegar. Stir them while heating, and cool before using.
Cranberry Sauce.—Wash well and put a tea-cup of water to every quart of cranberries. Let them stew about an hour and a half, then take up and sweeten abundantly. Some strain them through a colander, then sweeten largely and then put into moulds. To be eaten with fowls.
Apple Sauce.—Core and slice the best apples you can get, cook till soft, then add sugar and a little butter. Serve it with fresh pork and veal.
Walnut or Butternut Catsup.—Gather the nuts when they can be pierced with a pin. Beat them to a soft pulp and let them lie for two weeks in quite salt water, say a small handful of salt to every twenty, and water enough to cover them. Drain off this liquor, and pour on a pint of boiling vinegar and mix with the nuts, and then strain it out. To each quart of this liquor put three table-spoonfuls of pepper, one of ginger, two spoonfuls of powdered cloves, and three spoonfuls of grated nutmeg. Boil an hour, and bottle when cold. See that the spice is equally mixed. Do not use mushroom catsup, as the above is as good and not so dangerous.
Mock Capers.—Dry the green but full-grown nasturtion seeds for a day in the sun, then put them in jars and pour on spiced vinegar. These are good for fish sauce, in drawn butter.
Salad Dressing.—Mash fine two boiled potatoes, and add a tea-spoonful of mustard, two of salt, four of sweet-oil, three of sharp vinegar, and the yelks of two well-boiled eggs rubbed fine. Mix first the egg and potatoes, add the mustard and salt, and gradually mix in the oil, stirring vigorously the while. Stir in the vinegar last. Melted butter may be used in place of sweet-oil. The more a salad dressing is stirred, the better it will be.
Turkey or Chicken Salad, also a Lettuce Salad.—Take one quarter chopped meat (the white meat of the fowl is the best for this purpose) and three quarters chopped celery, well mixed, and pour over it a sauce containing the yelks of two hard-boiled eggs chopped, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a salt-spoonful of black pepper, half a tea-spoonful of mustard, three tea-spoonfuls of sugar, half a tea-cupful of vinegar, and three tea-spoonfuls of sweet-oil or of melted butter. Mix the salt, pepper, sugar, and mustard thoroughly, whip a raw egg and add slowly, stir in the sweet-oil or melted butter, mixing it well and very slowly, and lastly add the vinegar. Garnish with rings of whites of eggs boiled hard. Chopped