Part 31

PICKLED WATER-MELON RIND. (_Extremely nice._)

Equal weight of rind and white sugar. ½ ounce white ginger to a gallon of pickle. 1 pint vinegar to every pound of sugar. 1 tablespoonful turmeric to a gallon of pickle. Mace, cloves, and cinnamon to taste.

Take the thickest rind you can get, pare off the hard green rind, also the soft inner pulp. Lay the pieces—narrow strips or fanciful cuttings—in brine strong enough to float an egg, and let them remain in it ten days. Then soak in fair water, changing it every day for ten days. Cover them with clear water in a preserving-kettle, heat slowly and boil five minutes. Take them out and plunge instantly into ice-water. Leave them in this until next day. Give them another gentle boil of five minutes in strong alum-water. Simmer carefully, as a hard boil will injure them. Change _directly_ from the alum to the ice-water again, and do not disturb them for four hours. After a third boil of five minutes, let them remain all night in the last water to make them tender. Next day add to enough water to cover the rinds sufficient sugar to make it quite sweet, but not a syrup. Simmer the rinds in this ten minutes, throw the water away, and spread them upon dishes to cool. Meanwhile prepare a second syrup, allowing sugar equal in weight to the rind, and half an ounce of sliced white ginger to a gallon of the pickle, with a cup of water for every two pounds of sugar. When the sugar is melted and the syrup quite hot, but not boiling, put in the rinds and simmer until they look quite clear. Take it out, spread upon the dishes again, while you add to the syrup a pint of vinegar for every pound of the sugar you have put in, one tablespoonful of turmeric to a gallon of pickle; mace, cloves and cinnamon to taste. Boil this up, return the rind to it, and simmer fifteen minutes. Put up in glass jars. It will be fit for use in two weeks.

This is a very handsome and delicious pickle, although it may seem to be made upon the principle of the Frenchman’s pebble-soup.

GREEN TOMATO SOY. ✠

2 gallons tomatoes, green, and sliced without peeling. 12 good-sized onions, also sliced. 2 quarts vinegar. 1 quart sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls salt. 2 tablespoonfuls ground mustard. 2 tablespoonfuls black pepper, ground. 1 tablespoonful allspice. 1 tablespoonful cloves.

Mix all together, and stew until tender, stirring often lest they should scorch. Put up in small glass jars.

This is a most useful and pleasant sauce for almost every kind of meat and fish.

SWEET TOMATO PICKLE. (_Very good._) ✠

7 lbs. ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced. 3½ lbs. sugar. 1 oz. cinnamon and mace mixed. 1 oz. cloves. 1 quart of vinegar.

Mix all together and stew an hour.

RIPE TOMATO PICKLE. (_No. 2._)

2 gallons tomatoes, peeled, but not sliced. 1 pint vinegar. 2 lbs. sugar. Mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon to taste.

Put all on together, heat slowly to a boil, and simmer one hour. Put up in glass jars.

SWEET PICKLE—PLUMS, PEARS, PEACHES, OR OTHER FRUITS. ✠

7 lbs. fruit, pared. 4 lbs. white sugar. 1 pint strong vinegar. Mace, cinnamon, and cloves.

Pare peaches and pears; prick plums and damsons, tomatoes, “globes” or husk-tomatoes (otherwise known as ground-plums). Put into the kettle with alternate layers of sugar. Heat slowly to a boil; add the vinegar and spice; boil five minutes; take out the fruit with a perforated skimmer and spread upon dishes to cool. Boil the syrup thick; pack the fruit in glass jars, and pour the syrup on boiling hot.

Examine every few days for the first month, and should it show signs of fermenting set the jars (uncovered) in a kettle of water, and heat until the contents are scalding.

Husk-tomatoes—a fruit which looks like a hybrid between the tomato and plum—are particularly nice put up in this way.

PICKLED PEACHES.

10 lbs. fruit—pared. 4½ lbs. sugar. 1 quart vinegar. Mace, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

Lay the peaches in the sugar for an hour; drain off every drop of syrup, and put over the fire with about a cup of water. Boil until the scum ceases to rise. Skim; put in the fruit and boil five minutes. Take out the peaches with a perforated skimmer, and spread upon dishes to cool. Add the vinegar and spices to the syrup. Boil fifteen minutes longer, and pour over the fruit in glass jars.

PICKLED PEACHES (_unpeeled_.)

Rub the fur off with a coarse cloth, and prick each peach with a fork. Heat in _just_ enough water to cover them until they almost boil; take them out, and add to the water sugar in the following proportions:—

For every 7 lbs. of fruit 3 lbs. of sugar. Boil fifteen minutes; skim, and add— 3 pints of vinegar. 1 tablespoonful (each) of allspice, mace, and cinnamon. 1 teaspoonful celery-seed. 1 teaspoonful cloves.

Put the spices in thin muslin bags. Boil all together ten minutes, then put in the fruit, and boil until they can be pierced with a straw. Take out the fruit with a skimmer, and spread upon dishes to cool. Boil the syrup until thick, pack the peaches in glass jars, and pour this over them scalding hot.

You may pickle pears in the same way without peeling.

PICKLED CHERRIES. ✠

Morella, or large red tart cherries, as fresh as you can get them. To every quart allow a large cup of vinegar and two tablespoonfuls of sugar, with a dozen whole cloves and half a dozen blades of mace.

Put the vinegar and sugar on to heat with the spices. Boil five minutes; turn out into a covered stoneware vessel, cover, and let it get perfectly cold. Strain out the spices, fill small jars three-quarters of the way to the top with fruit, and pour the cold vinegar over them. Cork or cover tightly. Leave the stems on the cherries.

PICKLETTE. ✠

4 large crisp cabbages, chopped fine. 1 quart onions, chopped fine. 2 quarts of vinegar, or enough to cover the cabbage. 2 lbs. brown sugar. 2 tablespoonfuls ground mustard. 2 tablespoonfuls black pepper. 2 tablespoonfuls cinnamon. 2 tablespoonfuls turmeric. 2 tablespoonfuls celery-seed. 1 tablespoonful allspice. 1 tablespoonful mace. 1 tablespoonful alum, pulverized.

Pack the cabbage and onions in alternate layers, with a little salt between them. Let them stand until next day. Then scald the vinegar, sugar, and spices together, and pour over the cabbage and onion. Do this three mornings in succession. On the fourth, put all together over the fire and heat to a boil. Let them boil five minutes. When cold, pack in small jars.

It is fit for use as soon as cool, but keeps well.

DRINKS.

COFFEE.

Never buy the ground coffee put up in packages, if you can get any other. The mere fact that after they have gone to the expense of the machinery and labor requisite for grinding it, the manufacturers can sell it cheaper per pound than grocers can the whole grains, roasted or raw, should convince every sensible person that it is adulterated with other and less expensive substances. Be that as it may, coffee loses its aroma so rapidly after it is ground that it is worth your while to buy it whole, either in small quantities freshly roasted, or raw, and roast it yourself; or stand by and see your respectable grocer grind what you have just bought. You can roast in a pan in the oven, stirring every few minutes, or in the same upon the top of the range. Stir often and roast quickly to a bright brown—not a dull black. While still hot, beat up the white of an egg with a tablespoonful of melted butter and stir up well with it. This will tend to preserve the flavor. Grind just enough at a time for a single making.

TO MAKE COFFEE (_boiled._)

1 full coffee-cup (½ pint) of ground coffee. 1 quart of boiling water. White of an egg, and crushed shell of same. ½ cup of cold water to settle it.

Stir up the eggshell and the white (beaten) with the coffee, and a very little cold water, and mix gradually with the boiling water in the coffee-boiler. Stir from the sides and top as it boils up. Boil pretty fast twelve minutes; pour in the cold water and take from the fire, setting gently upon the hearth to settle. In five minutes, pour it off carefully into your silver, china, or Britannia coffee-pot, which should be previously well scalded.

Send to table _hot_.

TO MAKE COFFEE WITHOUT BOILING.

There are so many patent coffee-pots for this purpose, and the directions sold with these are so minute, that I need give only a few general rules here. Allow rather more coffee to a given quantity of water than if it were to be boiled, and have it ground _very_ fine. Put the coffee in the uppermost compartment, pour on the water very slowly until the fine coffee is saturated, then more rapidly. The water should be boiling. Shut down the top, and the coffee ought to be ready when it has gone through the double or treble set of strainers. Should it not be strong enough, run it through again.

CAFÉ AU LAIT.

1 pint very strong _made_ coffee—fresh and hot. 1 pint boiling milk.

The coffee should be poured off the grounds through a fine strainer (thin muslin is the best material) into the table coffee-pot. Add the milk, and set the pot where it will keep hot for five minutes before pouring it out.

TEA.

2 teaspoonfuls of tea to one _large_ cupful of boiling water.

Scald the teapot well, put in the tea, and, covering close, set it on the stove or range one minute to warm; pour on enough boiling water to cover it well, and let it stand ten minutes to “draw.” Keep the lid of the pot shut, and set in a warm place, but do not let it boil. Fill up with as much boiling water as you will need, and send hot to the table, after pouring into a heated china or silver pot.

The bane of tea in many households is unboiled water. It can never extract the flavor as it should, although it steep for hours. The kettle should not only steam, but bubble and puff in a hard boil before you add water from it to the tea-leaves.

Boiling after the tea is made, injures the flavor either by deadening or making it rank and “herby.”

The English custom of making tea upon the breakfast or tea-table is fast gaining ground in America. It is at once the best and prettiest way of preparing the beverage.

CHOCOLATE. ✠

6 tablespoonfuls grated chocolate to each pint of water. As much milk as you have water. Sweeten to taste.

Put on the water boiling hot. Rub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water, and stir into the boiling water. Boil twenty minutes; add the milk and boil ten minutes more, stirring frequently. You can sweeten upon the fire or in the cups.

COCOA NIBS, OR SHELLS. ✠

1 quart of boiling water. 2 ozs. of cocoa nibs. 1 quart fresh milk.

Wet the shells or nibs up with a little cold water; add to the boiling, and cook one hour and a half; strain, put in the milk, let it heat almost to boiling, and take from the fire.

This is excellent for invalids.

PREPARED COCOA. ✠

1 quart of water, boiling. 2 ozs. prepared cocoa—Baker’s is best. 1 quart of milk.

Make as you do chocolate—only boil nearly an hour before you add the milk, afterward heating _almost_ to boiling. Sweeten to taste.

MILK TEA (FOR CHILDREN.)

1 pint fresh milk and the same of _boiling_ water. Sweeten to taste.

RASPBERRY ROYAL. ✠

4 quarts ripe berries. 1 quart best cider vinegar. 1 lb. white sugar. 1 pint fine brandy.

Put the berries in a stone jar, pour the vinegar over them, add the sugar, and pound the berries to a paste with a wooden pestle, or mash with a spoon. Let them stand in the sun four hours; strain and squeeze out all the juice, and put in the brandy. Seal up in bottles; lay them on their sides in the cellar, and cover with sawdust.

Stir two tablespoonfuls into a tumbler of ice-water when you wish to use it.

RASPBERRY VINEGAR. ✠

Put the raspberries into a stone vessel and mash them to a pulp. Add cider-vinegar—no specious imitation, but the genuine article—enough to cover it well. Stand in the sun twelve hours, and all night in the cellar. Stir up well occasionally during this time. Strain, and put as many fresh berries in the jar as you took out; pour the strained vinegar over them; mash and set in the sun all day. Strain a second time next day. To each quart of this juice allow

1 pint of water. 5 lbs. of sugar (best white) for every 3 pints of this liquid, juice and water mingled.

Place over a gentle fire and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Heat slowly to boiling, skimming off the scum, and as soon as it fairly boils take off and strain. Bottle while warm, and seal the corks with sealing wax, or bees’-wax and rosin.

A most refreshing and pleasant drink.

BLACKBERRY VINEGAR

Is made in the same manner as raspberry, allowing 5½ lbs. sugar to 3 pints of juice and water.

BLACKBERRY CORDIAL.

1 quart of blackberry juice. 1 lb. white sugar. ½ oz. grated nutmeg. ½ oz. powdered cinnamon. ¼ oz. allspice. ¼ oz. cloves. 1 pint best brandy.

Tie the spices in thin muslin bags; boil juice, sugar, and spices together fifteen minutes, skimming well; add the brandy; set aside in a closely covered vessel to cool. When perfectly cold, strain out the spices, and bottle, sealing the corks.

ELDERBERRY WINE.

8 quarts of berries. 4 quarts of boiling water poured over the berries.

Let it stand twelve hours, stirring now and then. Strain well, pressing out all the juice. Add

3 lbs. of sugar to 4 quarts of juice. 1 oz. powdered cinnamon. ½ oz. powdered cloves.

Boil five minutes, and set away to ferment in a stone jar, with a cloth thrown lightly over it. When it has done fermenting, rack it off carefully, not to disturb the lees. Bottle and cork down well.

CRANBERRY WINE.

Mash ripe berries to a pulp; put into a stone jar. Add 1 quart of water to 2 quarts of berries.

Stir well and let it stand two days. Strain through a double flannel bag; mash a second supply of berries, equal in quantity to the first, and cover with this liquid. Steep two days more; strain; add

1 lb. sugar for 3 quarts of liquor,

and boil five minutes. Let it ferment in lightly covered jars; rack off and bottle.

This is said to be very good for scrofula.

STRAWBERRY WINE.

3 quarts of strawberries, mashed and strained. To the juice (there should be about a quart, if the berries are ripe and fresh) add

1 quart of water. 1 lb. of sugar.

Stir up well and ferment in a clean, sweet cask, leaving the bung out. When the working subsides close tightly, or rack off into bottles.

This is said by those who have tasted it to be very good.

CURRANT WINE.

Pick, stem, mash, and strain the currants, which should be very ripe.

To 1 quart of juice add ¾ lb. white sugar. ½ pint of water.

Stir all together long and well; put into a clean cask, leaving out the bung, and covering the whole with a bit of lace or mosquito net. Let it ferment about four weeks—rack off when it is quite still, and bottle.

JAMAICA GINGER-BEER.

1 bottle Jamaica Ginger Extract. 1 oz. cream-tartar. 6 quarts water. 1 lb. sugar.

Stir until the sugar is melted, then put in the grated peel of a lemon, and heat until blood-warm. Add a tablespoonful of brewers’ yeast; stir well and bottle, wiring down the corks. It will be fit for use in four days.

This is a refreshing and healthful beverage mixed with pounded ice in hot weather.

RAISIN WINE.

1 lb. white sugar. 2 lbs. raisins, seeded and chopped. 1 lemon—all the juice and half the grated peel. 2 gallons boiling water.

Put all into a stone jar, and stir every day for a week. Strain, then, and bottle it. It will be fit for use in ten days.

LEMONADE OR SHERBET.

3 lemons to a quart of water. 6 tablespoonfuls of sugar.

Pare the yellow peel from the lemons, and, unless you mean to use the Sherbet immediately, leave it out. It gives a bitter taste to the sugar if left long in it. Slice and squeeze the lemons upon the sugar, add a very little water, and let them stand fifteen minutes. Then fill up with water; ice well, stir, and pour out.

ORANGEADE

Is made in the same manner, substituting oranges for lemons.

STRAWBERRY SHERBET. (_Delicious._) ✠

1 quart of strawberries. 3 pints of water. 1 lemon—the juice only. 1 tablespoonful orange-flower water. ¾ lb. white sugar.

The strawberries should be fresh and ripe. Crush to a smooth paste; add the rest of the ingredients (except the sugar), and let it stand three hours. Strain over the sugar, squeezing the cloth hard; stir until the sugar is dissolved; strain again and set in ice for two hours or more before you use it.

REGENT’S PUNCH. (_Fine._)

1 lb. loaf-sugar or rock candy. 1 large cup strong black tea—(made). 3 wineglasses of brandy. 3 wineglasses of rum. 1 bottle champagne. 2 oranges—juice only. 3 lemons—juice only. 1 large lump of ice.

This receipt was given me by a gentleman of the old school, a connoisseur in the matter of beverages as of cookery. “Tell your readers,” he writes, “that better punch was never brewed.” I give receipt and message together.

ROMAN PUNCH.

3 coffee cups of lemonade—(strong and sweet.) 1 glass champagne. 1 glass rum. 2 oranges—juice only. 2 eggs—whites only—well whipped. ½ lb. powdered sugar, beaten into the stiffened whites.

You must ice abundantly—or, if you prefer, freeze.

SHERRY COBBLER.

Several slices of pineapple, cut in quarters. A lemon, sliced thin. An orange, sliced thin. ½ cup of powdered sugar. 1 tumbler of Sherry wine. Ice-water. Pounded ice.

Take a wide-mouthed quart pitcher and lay the sliced fruit in order at the bottom, sprinkling sugar and pounded ice between the layers. Cover with sugar and ice, and let all stand together five minutes. Add then two tumblers of water and all the sugar, and stir well to dissolve this. Fill the pitcher nearly full of pounded ice, pour in the wine, and stir up from the bottom until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. In pouring it out put a slice of each kind of fruit in each goblet before adding the liquid.

It is best sucked through a straw or glass tube.

NECTAR. ✠

Make as above, substituting a little rose-water for the pineapple, and squeezing out the juice of the orange and lemon, instead of putting in the slices. Sprinkle nutmeg on the top.

This forms a delicious and refreshing drink for invalids.

CLARET PUNCH. ✠

1 bottle of claret. ¼ the quantity of ice-water. 2 lemons, sliced. ½ cup powdered sugar.

Cover the sliced lemon with sugar and let it stand ten minutes. Add the water; stir hard for a whole minute, and pour in the wine. Put pounded ice in each glass before filling with the mixture.

EGG NOGG. ✠

6 eggs—whites and yolks beaten separately and very stiff. 1 quart rich milk. ½ cup of sugar. ½ pint best brandy. Flavor with nutmeg.

Stir the yolks into the milk with the sugar, which should first be beaten with the yolks. Next comes the brandy. Lastly whip in the whites of three eggs.

CHERRY BOUNCE.

4 lbs. of sour and the same quantity of sweet cherries. 2½ lbs. white sugar. 1 gallon best whiskey.

Crush the cherries to pieces by pounding in a deep wooden vessel with a smooth billet of wood. Beat hard enough to crack all the stones. Put into a deep stone jar, mix in the sugar well, and cover with the whiskey. Shake around briskly and turn into a demijohn. Cork tightly and let it stand a month, shaking it every day, and another month without touching it. Then strain off and bottle.

It is better a year than six months old.

If the Maltese cross appears but seldom in the section devoted to drinks, it is because most of my information respecting their manufacture is second-hand. In my own family they are so little used, except in sickness, that I should not dare to teach others, upon my own authority, how to prepare them. Indeed, the temptation I felt to omit many of them reminded me of a remark made, introductory of preserves, by one of the “Complete Housewives,” who, all five together, drove me to the verge of an attack of congestion of the brain, before I had been a housekeeper for a week. Said this judicious lady:—“Preserves of all kinds are expensive and indigestible, and therefore poisonous. _Therefore_”—again—“I shall not give directions for their manufacture, except to remark that barberries stewed in molasses are economical, and a degree less hurtful than most others of that class of compounds.”

Then I reflected that I might, upon the same principle, exclude all receipts in which cocoanut is used, because it is rank poison to me; while a dear friend of mine would as soon touch arsenic as an egg. A large majority of the beverages I have named are highly medicinal, and deserve a place in the housekeeper’s calendar on that account. Many, so far from being hurtful, are beneficial to a weak stomach or a system suffering under general debility. _None which contain alcohol in any shape should be used daily, much less semi- or tri-daily by a well person._

This principle reduced to practice would prove the preventive ounce which would cure, all over the land, the need for Temperance Societies and Inebriate Asylums.

THE SICK-ROOM.

The sick-chamber should be the most quiet and cheerful in the house—a sacred isle past which the waves of domestic toil and solicitude glide silently. This is not an easy rule to obey. Whoever the invalid may be, whether the mother, father, or the sweet youngling of the flock, the foundations of the household seem thrown out of course while the sickness lasts. You may have good servants and kind friends to aid you, but the hitch in the machinery is not to be smoothed out by their efforts. The irregularity does not annoy you: you do not notice it if the attack be severe or dangerous. All other thoughts are swallowed up in the all-absorbing, ever-present alarm. You count nothing an inconvenience that can bring present relief, or possible healing to the beloved one; disdain for yourself rest or ease while the shadow hangs above the pillow crushed by the helpless head. But when it passes, when the first transport of thankfulness has subsided into an abiding sense of safety, the mind swings back to the accustomed pivot, and your eyes seem to be suddenly unbound. You find, with dismay, that the children have run wild, and the comfort of the whole family been neglected during your confinement to the post of most urgent duty; with displeasure, that the servants have, as you consider, taken advantage of your situation to omit this task, and to slur over that;—in fine, that nothing has been done well, and so many things left altogether undone, that you are “worried out of your senses”—a phrase that too often signifies, out of your temper.