MANY THINGS

_Choice and Cheap Cookery--New Receipts--Southern Dishes--Gumbo, &c.--Home-made Wines, &c.--Dairy--Coloring--Diet--Health, &c._

1159. _To preserve Ginger._--Take green ginger, pare it with a sharp knife, and then throw it into cold water as pared, to keep it white; then boil it till tender, in three waters, at each change putting the ginger into cold water. For seven pounds of ginger, clarify eight pounds of refined sugar; when cold, drain the ginger, and put it into a pan, with enough of the syrup to cover it, and let it stand two days; then pour the syrup to the remainder of the sugar, and boil it some time; when cold, pour it on the ginger again, and set it by for three days; then boil the syrup again, and pour it hot over the ginger. Proceed thus till you find the ginger rich and tender, and the syrup is highly flavored. If you put the syrup on hot at first, or if too rich, the ginger will shrink, and not take the sugar.

1160. _Orange Syrup._--Is so easily made, and can be used so constantly with advantage, that no housekeeper should be without it. Select ripe and thin-skinned fruit; squeeze the juice through a sieve; to every pint, add a pound a half of powdered sugar; boil it slowly, and skim as long as any scum rises; you may then take it off, let it grow cold, and bottle it off. Be sure to secure the corks well. Two table-spoonfuls of this syrup, mixed in melted butter, make an admirable sauce for a plum or butter-pudding; and it imparts a fine flavor to custards.

1161. _Apple or Quince Jelly._--Pare, quarter, and core the apples; put them in a sauce-pan, with enough water to cover them only; let them boil five minutes; put them in a bag, and let them drain until the next day. To one pint of juice, put one pound of sugar, and boil it from fifteen to twenty minutes.

[_Cranberry Jelly may be made in the same way._]

1162. _Brandy Cherries._--Take the nicest carnation cherries, and trim them, leaving a short stem to keep in the juice; wash and wipe them tenderly, and put them into wide-mouthed bottles. Make a good syrup, and, when it is nearly done, add a pint and a half of French brandy to one pint of syrup; mix it thoroughly, and, when cold, pour it over the cherries. If carefully sealed, the fruit will be good for years.

1163. _Brandy Peaches._--Drop the peaches in weak, boiling lye; let them remain till the skin can be wiped off; make a thin syrup, and let it cover the fruit; boil the fruit till they can be pierced with a straw; take it out; make a very rich syrup, and add, after it is taken from the fire, and while it is still hot, an equal quantity of brandy. Pour this, while it is still warm, over the peaches in the jar. They must be covered with it.

1164. _Brandied Peaches--an excellent way._--After having removed the skin in the usual manner, by using _lye_, and throwing them in cold water, weigh the peaches, and put them in a stone jar--allowing room at the top for three-quarters of a pound of sugar for each pound of peaches; then pour over enough white brandy to cover the fruit. Set the jar in a pot of cold water, and let it remain over the fire till the _brandy_ comes to a scald. When they are cold, they may either be put in glass jars, and tied down with bladder, or left in the same jar.

1165. _Tomato Catchup._--To one gallon of skinned tomatoes, add four table-spoonfuls of salt; four table-spoonfuls of black pepper, ground fine; half a table-spoonful of allspice, ground fine; three table-spoonfuls of mustard; eight pods of red pepper. Simmer it slowly in sharp vinegar, in a pewter vessel, three or four hours; then strain it through a wire-sieve, and bottle it up. When cold, seal up the corks, and it will last for years.

1166. _Green Tomato Pickle._--Cut in thin slices one peck of green tomatoes; sprinkle them with salt, and let them stand a day or two. Slice ten or twelve small onions. Mix together one bottle or small tin box of mustard; half an ounce of mustard-seed; one ounce of cloves; one ounce of pimento; two ounces of turmeric. Put in the kettle a layer of tomatoes, then one of onions and spice, till all are in. Cover it with good vinegar, and let it simmer till the tomatoes are quite clear.

1167. _French Mustard._--Put on a plate, one ounce of the best powdered mustard; a salt-spoonful of salt; a few leaves of tarragon; and a clove of garlic, minced fine. Pour on it, by degrees, sufficient vinegar to dilute it to the proper consistency; about a wine-glassful; mix it with a wooden spoon. Do not use it in less than twenty-four hours.

1168. _India Pickle._ (_E. R._)--Put two hundred gherkins, three pints of small onions, one quart of nasturtiums, one quart of radish-pods, 1 quartern of string-beans, six cauliflowers, and two hard, white cabbages, sliced, into a pan, and sprinkle them with salt--the onions having been previously peeled, and laid in salt and water for a week, to take off their strength. Then, after a day or two, take them out of the pan, and dry them thoroughly in a warm place, in the shade: they must be spread out separately. To two gallons of vinegar, put one ounce and a half of allspice, the same of long pepper and of white, and two ounces of ginger, tied up in muslin bags. When cold, mix with the vinegar one pound and a half of flour of mustard, and two table-spoonfuls of Cayenne pepper. Boil it well together, and pour it on the pickle. The vegetables mentioned, not being all procurable at the same time, may be added separately, at different periods, but they must all undergo the salting and drying process.

In choosing those vegetables, some discrimination may also be used. When in season, few things add a higher flavor to the pickle than the buds and flowers of the elder.

1169. _Horse-radish._--Let the horse-radish lie one or two hours in cold water; then scrape off the skin, grate it, and moisten it with vinegar. Serve it with roast meat.

1170. _Oyster Gumbo._--Mix well one table-spoonful of flour and one of lard, and brown the mixture in a frying-pan; take the liquor of two quarts of oysters, set it on the fire, and when it boils, add the browned flour with some chopped leeks and parsley; then put in the oysters, and let the whole simmer for fifteen minutes; next sift into it a table-spoonful and a half of powdered sassafras, to give it the fillet; leave it two or three minutes longer on the fire, and serve it very hot. No spices, but black pepper. This dish will require more or less time to prepare, according to the ingredients of which it is to be composed. For chicken or turkey gumbo, the fowl must first be fricasseed. Any good cook will understand how to make a piquante and palatable stock, of whatever she may select for her gumbo.

1171. _Mayonnaise._--Roast a pair of chickens or a turkey, in the morning, and put them away to settle the juices. Immediately before serving the dish, carve the fowls, and put them compactly into a dish; take the yolks of six eggs, and pour, in a very fine and continued stream upon them, half a bottle of olive oil, and stir the eggs one way, till they are creamed; then put half a tea-spoonful of vinegar into this dressing, and having put pepper, salt, and a little vinegar on the fowl, pour the dressing over it, and arrange all over it bunches of cool, fresh lettuce. Garnish with hard eggs.

1172. _Jambalaya_--Cut up, and stew till half done, a fowl, brown or white; then add rice, and a piece of ham well minced; this must be left on the fire till the rice has taken up the liquid; the roundness of the grain must be preserved, yet the dish must not be hard and dry. It is served in a heap, on a flat dish. Pepper and salt the only seasoning.

Southern children are very fond of this essentially home-dish. It is said to be of Indian origin. Wholesome as it is palatable, it makes part of almost every Creole dinner.

1173. _Imitation of Mock Turtle._--Put into a pan a knuckle of veal, two fine cow-heels or two calf's feet, two onions, a few cloves, peppers, berries of allspice, mace, and sweet herbs; cover them with water, then tie a thick paper over the pan, and set it in an oven for three hours. When cold, take off the fat very nicely; cut the meat and feet into bits an inch and a half square; remove the bones and coarse parts, and then put the rest on to warm, with a large spoonful of walnut and one of mushroom catchup, half a pint of sherry or Madeira wine, a little mushroom-powder, and the jelly of the meat. When hot, if it wants any more seasoning, add some; and serve with hard eggs, forcemeat balls, a squeeze of lemon, and a spoonful of soy. This is a very easy way, and the dish is excellent.

1174. _Oyster Sausages._--Beard, rinse well in their strained liquor, and mince, but not finely, three dozen and a half of plump oysters, and mix them with ten ounces of fine bread-crumbs, and ten of beef-suet chopped extremely small; add a salt-spoonful of salt, and one of pepper, or less than half the quantity of cayenne, twice as much pounded mace, and the third of a small nutmeg grated; moisten the whole with two unbeaten eggs, or with the yolks only of three, and a dessert-spoonful of the whites. When these ingredients have been well worked together, and are perfectly blended, set the mixture in a cool place for two or three hours before it is used; make it into the form of small sausages or sausage-cakes, flour and fry them in butter, of a fine light brown; or throw them into boiling water for three minutes, drain, and let them become cold; dip them into egg and bread-crumbs, and broil them gently until they are lightly colored. A small bit should be cooked and tasted before the whole is put aside, that the seasoning may be heightened if required. The sausages thus made are very good.

Small plump oysters, three dozen and a half; bread-crumbs, ten ounces; beef-suet, ten ounces; seasoning of salt, cayenne, pounded mace, and nutmeg; unbeaten eggs, two, or yolks of three.

_Obs._--The fingers should be well floured for making up these sausages.

1175. _New England Chowder._--Have a good haddock, cod, or any other solid fish, cut it in pieces three inches square, put a pound of fat salt pork in strips into the pot, set it on hot coals, and fry out the oil. Take out the pork, and put in a layer of fish, over that a layer of onions in slices, then a layer of fish with slips of fat salt pork, then another layer of onions, and so on alternately, until your fish is consumed. Mix some flour with as much water as will fill the pot; season with black pepper and salt to your taste, and boil it for half an hour. Have ready some crackers soaked in water till they are a little softened; throw them into your chowder five minutes before you take it up. Serve in a tureen.

1176. _Curing Hams--the Newbold Receipt._--Take seven pounds coarse salt, five pounds brown sugar, two ounces pearl-ash, 4 gallons of water. Boil all together, and scum the pickle well when cold. Put it on the meat. Hams remain in it eight weeks--beef three weeks. The above is for one hundred and ninety pounds weight.

1177. _A Pickle that will keep for years, for hams, tongues, or beef, if boiled and skimmed between each parcel of them._--To two gallons of spring water put two pounds of coarse sugar, two pounds of bay and two and a half pounds of common salt, and half a pound of saltpetre, in a deep earthen glazed pan that will hold four gallons, and with a cover that will fit close. Keep the beef or hams as long as they will bear before you put them into the pickle; and sprinkle them with coarse sugar in a pan, from which they must drain. Rub the hams, &c., well with the pickle, and pack them in close, putting as much as the pan will hold, so that the pickle may cover them. The pickle is not to be boiled at first. A small ham may lie fourteen days, a large one three weeks; a tongue twelve days, and beef in proportion to its size. They will eat well out of the pickle without drying. When they are to be dried, let each piece be drained over the pan; and when it will drop no longer, take a clean sponge and dry it thoroughly. Six or eight hours will smoke them, and there should be only a little sawdust and wet straw burnt to do this; but if put into a baker's chimney, sew them in a coarse cloth, and hang them a week. Add two pounds of common salt and two pints of water every time you boil the liquor.

1178. _To smoke Hams and Fish on a small scale._--Drive the ends out of an old hogshead or barrel; place this over a heap of sawdust of green hard wood, in which a bar of red-hot iron is buried; or take corn-cobs, which make the best smoke; place them in a clean iron kettle, the bottom of which is covered with burning coals; hang the hams, tongues, fish, &c., on sticks across the cask, and cover it, but not closely, that the cobs or sawdust may smoulder slowly, but not burn.

1179. _Onion Sauce._--Peel the onions, and boil them tender; squeeze the water from them; chop them; and pour on them butter that has been carefully incited, together with a little good milk, instead of water. Boil it up once. A turnip boiled with the onions, makes them milder.

1180. _Sauce Robert._--Cut into small dice, four or five large onions, and brown them in a stew-pan, with three ounces of butter, and a dessert-spoonful of flour. When of a deep yellow-brown, pour to them half a pint of beef or of veal-gravy, and let them simmer for fifteen minutes; skim the sauce; add a seasoning of salt and pepper, and, at the moment of serving, mix in a dessert-spoonful of made-mustard.

Large onions, four or five; butter, three ounces; flour, a dessert-spoonful: ten to fifteen minutes. Gravy, half a pint: fifteen minutes. Mustard, a dessert-spoonful.

1181. _Tomato Sauce._--Crush half a dozen, more or less, of very ripe, red tomatoes; pick out the seeds, and squeeze the water from them; put them into a stew-pan, with two or three finely-sliced shalots, and a little gravy: simmer till nearly dry; when add half a pint of brown sauce, and simmer twenty minutes longer; then rub it through a tammy into a clean stew-pan; season with Cayenne pepper and salt, a little glaze, and lemon-juice; simmer a few minutes, and serve. Tarragon or Chili vinegar are sometimes added; and sliced onions may be substituted for the shalots.

1182. _Brown Caper Sauce._--Thicken half a pint of good veal or beef-gravy, as directed for Sauce-Tournée; and add to it two table-spoonfuls of capers, and a dessert-spoonful of the pickle-liquor, or of Chili vinegar, with some Cayenne, if the former be used, and a proper seasoning of salt.

Thickened veal, or beef-gravy, half a pint; capers, two table-spoonfuls; caper liquor, or Chili vinegar, one dessert-spoonful.

1183. _Horse-radish Sauce._--Scrape, finely, a stick of horse-radish into about half a pint of brown sauce and a gravy-spoonful of vinegar; simmer, and season with salt and sugar. This sauce is eaten with hot roast beef.

1184. _Sauce for cold Roast Beef._--Mix scraped horse-radish, made-mustard, and vinegar, and sweeten with white sugar.

1185. _Mint Sauce._--Mix vinegar and brown sugar, and let it stand at least an hour; then add chopped mint, and stir together. It should be very sweet.

1186. _Mild Mustard._--Mustard, for instant use, should be mixed with milk, to which a spoonful or two of very thin cream may be added.

1187. _Mustard, the common way._--The great art of mixing mustard, is to have it perfectly smooth, and of a proper consistency. The liquid with which it is moistened, should be added to it in small quantities, and the mustard should be well rubbed, and beaten with a spoon. Mix half a tea-spoonful of salt with two ounces of the flour of mustard, and stir to them, by degrees, sufficient boiling water to reduce it to the appearance of a thick batter. Do not put it into the mustard-glass until cold. Some persons like half a tea-spoonful of sugar, in the finest powder, mixed with it. It ought to be sufficiently diluted always to drop easily from the spoon.

1188. _Parsley and Butter._--Scald a large handful of parsley in boiling water that has some salt in it; when tender, chop it fine, and stir it into some rather thick melted butter. There should be sufficient parsley to make the sauce green; and the parsley should not be put to the melted butter until about to be served, otherwise it will turn brown.

1189. _To make Sage and Onion Stuffing, for Roast Pork, Geese, Ducks, &c._--To make this stuffing, take two middling-sized onions, peel them, and boil them for about ten minutes in plenty of water; next take as much dry sage-leaves, as, when rubbed into powder and sifted through the top of your flour-dredger, will fill a table-spoon. When the onion has boiled about ten minutes, squeeze it dry, chop it fine, and mix it with the crumbled sage; then add to them a tea-cupful of stale, white bread-crumbs, with a tea-spoonful of black pepper, a very little pinch of Cayenne, and a salt-spoonful of salt. Mix all well together, and it is ready.

1190. _Sippets of Bread, for Garnishing._--Cut the crumb of a stale loaf in slices a quarter of an inch thick: form them into diamonds or half-diamonds, or in any other way: fry them in fresh butter. Dry them well, and place them around the dish to be garnished.

1191. _Seasoning for Stuffing._--One pound of salt, dried and sifted; half an ounce of ground white pepper; two ounces of dried thyme; one ounce of dried marjoram; and one ounce of nutmeg. When this seasoning is used, parsley only is required to be chopped in sufficient quantity to make the stuffing green. The proportions are--half a pound of bread-crumbs; three eggs; a quarter of a pound of suet; half an ounce of seasoning; and the peel of half a lemon, grated.

1192. _White Bread-Crumbs._--Put the crumb of very white bread into a slow oven or screen, and let it dry without color; beat and sift it; keep it in a close-covered pan in a dry, warm place: everything looks well, done with it. The crust may be dried, beaten, and sifted, for frying and garnishing.

When crumbs are not prepared till wanted, the bread is never in a proper condition; so that the crumbs are not only coarse and vulgar, but a sponge for fat, which shows bad taste, as well as being wasteful.

1193. _Panada._--Is indispensable in making good farce of any kind; it is even better for it than Naples' biscuit, and is made as follows:--Steep a sufficient quantity of good stale bread-crumb in cream or stock; set it over the fire in a sauce-pan, and work it with a wooden spoon till it is as smooth and dry as a stiff paste: let it cool, and beat it with a yolk or two, according to the quantity, in a mortar: it is then ready to be put into all kinds of farces.