narrow mouth, till it be near ready to boil; so that you may endure to dip
your hand into it, but not to let it stay in. Put your Lamprey's, as they
come out of the River, into this scalding-water, and cover the pot, that
little while they remain in, which must be but a moment, about an _Ave
Maria_ while. Then with a Woodden ladle take them out, and lay them upon a
table, and hold their head in a Napkin (else it will slip away, if held in
the bare hand) and with the back of a knife scrape off the mud, which will
have risen out all along the fish. A great deal and very thick will come
off: and then the skin will look clean and shining and blew, which must
never be flead off. Then open their bellies all along, and with a Pen-knife
loosen the string which begins under the gall (having first cast away the
gall and entrails) then pull it out, and in the pulling away, it will
stretch much in length; then pick out a black substance, that is all along
under the string, cutting towards the back as much as is needful for this
end. Then rowl them up and down in a soft and dry napkin, changing this as
soon as it is wet for another, using so many Napkins as may make the fishes
perfectly dry; for in that consisteth a chief part of their preparation.
Then powder them well with Pepper and Salt, rubbing them in well, and lay
them round in a Pot or strong crust upon a good Lare of Butter, and store
of Onions every where about them, and chiefly a good company in the middle.
Then put more Butter upon them, covering the pot with a fit cover, and so
set them into a quick oven, that is strongly heated; where they will
require three or four hours (at least) baking. When they are taken out of
the oven and begin to cool, pour store of melted Butter upon them, to fill
up the pot at least three fingers breadth above the fish, and then let it
cool and harden; And thus it will keep a year, if need be, so the Butter be
not opened, nor craked, that the air get into the fish.
To eat them presently, They dress them thus: When they are prepared, as
abovesaid, (ready for baking) boil them with store of Salt and gross
Pepper, and many Onions, in no more water, then is necessary to cover them,
as when you boil a Carp or Pike _au Court bouillon_. In half or three
quarters of an hour, they will be boiled tender. Then take them and drain
them from the water, and serve them with thickened Butter, and some of the
Onions minced into it, and a little Pepper, laying the fish upon some
sippets of spungy bread, that may soak up the water, if any come from the
fish; and pour butter upon the fish; so serve it up hot.
TO DRESS STOCK FISH, SOMEWHAT DIFFERINGLY FROM THE WAY OF HOLLAND
Beat the fish very well with a large Woodden-Mallet, so as not to break it,
but to loosen all the flakes within. It is the best way to have them beaten
with hard heavy Ropes. And though thus beaten, they will keep a long time,
if you put them into Pease straw, so thrust in as to keep them from all
air, and that they touch not one another, but have straw enough between
every fish. When you will make the best dish of them, take only the tails,
and tye up half a dozen or eight of them with White-thred. First, they must
be laid to soak over night in cold water. About an hour and half, (or a
little more) before they are to be eaten, put them to boil in a pot or
Pipkin, that you may cover with a cover of Tin or Letton so close, that no
steam can get out; and lay a stone or other weight upon it, to keep the
cover from being driven off by the steam of the water. Put in no more
water, then well to cover them. They must never boil strongly, but very
leasurely and but simpringly. It will be near half an hour before the water
begin to boil so: And from their beginning to do so, they must boil a good
hour. You must never put in any new water, though hot, for that will make
the fish hard. After the hour, take out the fishes and untie them, and lay
them loose in a colander with holes to drain out the water, and toss them
in it up and down very well, as you use to do Butter and Pease; and that
will loosen and break asunder all the flakes, which will make them the
more susceptible of the Butter, when you stew them in it, and make it
pierce the better into the flakes, and make them tender. Then lay them by
thin rows in the dish, they are to be served up in: casting upon every row
a little salt, and some green Parsley minced very small. They who love
young-green Onions or sives, or other savory Herbs, or Pepper, may use them
also in the same manner, when they are in season. When all is in, fill up
with sweet Butter well melted and thickened; and so let it stew there a
while, to soak well into the fish; which will lie in fine loose tender
flakes, well buttered and seasoned. You may eat it with Mustard besides.
BUTTERED WHITINGS WITH EGGS
Boil Whitings as if you would eat them in the Ordinary way with thick
Butter-sauce. Pick them clean from skin and bones, and mingle them well
with butter, and break them very small, and season them pretty high with
Salt. In the mean time Butter some Eggs in the best manner, and mingle them
with the buttered Whitings, and mash them well together. The Eggs must not
be so many by a good deal as the Fish. It is a most savoury dish.
TO DRESS POOR-JOHN AND BUCKORN
The way of dressing Poor-John, to make it very tender and good meat, is
this. Put it into the Kettle in cold water, and so hang it over the fire;
and so let it soak and stew without boiling for 3 hours: but the water must
be very hot. Then make it boil two or three walms. By this time it will be
very tender and swelled up. Then take out the back-bone, and put it to fry
with Onions. If you put it first into hot water (as ling and such salt
fish,) or being boiled, if you let it cool, and heat it again it will be
tough and hard.
Buckorne is to be watered a good hour before you put it to the fire. Then
boil it till it be tender, which it will be quickly. Then Butter it as you
do Ling; and if you will, put Eggs to it.
THE WAY OF DRESSING STOCK-FISH IN HOLLAND
First beat it exceedingly well, a long time, but with moderate blows, that
you do not break it in pieces, but that you shake and loosen all the inward
Fibers. Then put it into water (which may be a little warmed) to soak, and
infuse so during twelve or fourteen hours (or more, if it be not yet
pierced into the heart by the water, and grown tender.) Then put it to boil
very gently, (and with no more water, then well to cover it, which you must
supply with new hot water as it consumeth) for six or seven hours at least,
that it may be very tender and loose and swelled up. Then press and drain
out all the water from it; and heat it again in a dish, with store of
melted Butter thickened; and if you like it, you may season it also with
Pepper and Mustard. But it will be yet better, if after it is well and
tender boiled in water, and that you have pressed all the water you can out
of it, you boil it again an hour longer in Milk; out of which when you take
it, to put it into the dish with butter, you do not industriously press out
all the Milk, as you did the water, but only drain it out gently, pressing
it moderately. In the stewing it with butter, season it to your taste,
with what you think fitting.
ANOTHER WAY TO DRESS STOCK-FISH
Beat it exceeding well with a large woodden Mallet, till you may easily
pluck it all in pieces, severing every flake from other, and every one of
them in it so being loose, spungy and limber, as the whole fish must be,
and plyant like a glove, which will be in less then an hour. Pull then the
bones out, and throw them away, and pluck off the skin (as whole as you
can; but it will have many breaches and holes in it, by the beating) then
gather all the fish together, and lap it in the skin as well as you can,
into a round lump, like a bag-pudding, and tye it about with cords or
strings (like a little Collar of Brawn, or souced fish) and so put it into
lukewarm water (overnight) to soak, covering the vessel close; but you need
not keep it near any heat whiles it lyeth soaking. Next morning take it out
that water and vessel, and put it into another, with a moderate quantity of
other water, to boil; which it must do very leisurely, and but simpringly.
The main care must be, that the vessel it boileth in, be covered so
exceeding close, that not the least breath of steam get out, else it will
not be tender, but tough and hard. It will be boiled enough, and become
very tender in about a good half hour. Then take it out, unty it, and throw
away the skin, and lay the flaky fish in a Cullender, to drain away the
water from it. You must presently throw a little Salt upon it, and all
about in it, to season it. For then it will imbibe it into it self
presently; whereas if you Salt it not, till it grow cold in the air, it
will not take it in. Mean while prepare your sauce of melted well thickened
butter (which you may heighten with shreded Onions or Syves, or what well
tasted herbs you please) and if you will, you may first strew upon the fish
some very small shreded young Onions, or Sibbouls, or Syves, or Parsley.
Then upon that pour the melted butter to cover the fish all over, and soak
into it. Serve it in warm and covered.
TO DRESS PARSNEPS
Scrape well three or four good large roots, cleansing well their outside,
and cutting off as much of the little end as is Fibrous, and of the great
end as is hard. Put them into a possnet or pot, with about a quart of Milk
upon them, or as much as will cover them in boiling, which do moderately,
till you find they are very tender. This may be in an hour and half, sooner
or later, as the roots are of a good kind. Then take them out, and scrape
all the outside into a pulpe, like the pulpe of roasted apples, which put
in a dish upon a chafing dish of Coals, with a little of the Milk, you
boiled them in, put to them; not so much as to drown them, but only to
imbibe them: and then with stewing, the pulpe will imbibe all that Milk.
When you see it is drunk in, put to the pulpe a little more of the same
Milk, and stew that, till it be drunk in. Continue doing thus till it hath
drunk in a good quantity of the Milk, and is well swelled with it, and will
take in no more, which may be in a good half hour. Eat them so, without
Sugar or Butter; for they will have a natural sweetness, that is beyond
sugar, and will be Unctuous, so as not to need Butter.
Parsneps (raw) cut into little pieces, is the best food for tame Rabets,
and makes them sweet. As Rice (raw) is for tame Pigeons, and they like it
best, varying it sometimes with right tares, and other seeds.
CREAM WITH RICE
A very good Cream to eat hot, is thus made. Into a quart of sweet Cream,
put a spoonful of very fine powder of Rice, and boil them together
sufficiently, adding Cinnamon, or Mace and Nutmeg to your liking. When it
is boiled enough take it from the fire, and beat a couple of yolks of
new-laid Eggs, to colour it yellow. Sweeten it to your taste. Put bread to
it, in it's due time.
GREWEL OF OAT-MEAL AND RICE
Doctor Pridion ordered my Lord Cornwallis, for his chief diet in his
looseness, the following grewel, which he found very tastefull.
Take about two parts of Oat-meal well beaten in a Mortar, and one part of
Rice in subtile powder. Boil these well in water, as you make water-grewel,
adding a good proportion of Cinnamon to boil also in due time, then strain
it through a cloth, and sweeten it to your taste.
The yolk of an Egg beaten with a little Sherry-sack, and put to it, is not
bad in a looseness. At other times you may add Butter. It is very tasteful
and nourishing.
SAUCE FOR A CARP OR PIKE. TO BUTTER PEASE
Take two or three spoonfuls of the Liquor the Carp was boiled in, and put
it into a pipkin; There must be no more, then even to cover the bottom of
the pipkin. Make this boil by itself; as soon as it doth so, put to this
half a pound of sweet butter, let it melt gently, or suddenly, it imports
not, so as the liquor boiled, when you did put the butter in; when the
butter is melted, then take it from the fire, and holding the handle in
your hand, shake it round a good while and strongly, and it will come to be
thick, that you may almost cut it with a Knife. Then squeese juyce of Limon
into it, or of sharp Orange, or Verjuyce or Vinegar; and heat it again as
much as you please upon the fire. It will ever after continue thick, and
never again, upon any heating, grow oily, though it be cold and heated
again twenty times. Butter done with fair water, as is said above, with the
other Liquor, will be thick in the same manner, (for the liquors make no
difference in that:)
Put of this butter to boiled Pease in their dish, which cover with another;
so shake them very strongly, and a good while together. This is by much the
best way to butter pease, and not to let the butter melt in the middle of
them, and then stir them long with a spoon. This will grow Oily (though it
be good at the first doing) if you heat them again: The other, never; and
therefore, is the best way upon all occasions to make such thickened melted
Butter. You may make sauce for a Pike in the same manner you did for a
Carpe; putting Horse-radish to it if you please.
A HERRING-PYE
Put great store of sliced Onions, with Currants and Raisins of the Sun both
above and under the Herrings, and store of Butter, and so bake them.
A SYLLABUB
Take a reasonable quantity (as about half a Porrenger full) of the Syrup,
that hath served in the making of dryed plums; and into a large
Syllabub-pot milk or squirt, or let fall from high a sufficient quantity of
Milk or Cream. This Syrup is very quick of the fruit, and very weak of
Sugar; and therefore makes the Syllabub exceeding well tasted. You may also
use the Syrup used in the like manner in the drying of Cherries.
BUTTER AND OIL TO FRY FISH
The best Liquor to fry Fish in, is to take Butter and Salet Oyl, first well
clarified together. This hath not the unsavoury taste of Oyl alone, nor the
blackness of Butter alone. It fryeth Fish crisp, yellow, and well tasted.
TO PREPARE SHRIMPS FOR DRESSING
When you will Butter Shrimps, first wash them well in warm Milk and Water
equally mingled together, and let them soak a little in it; then wash them
again in fresh Milk and Water warmed, letting them also soak therein a
while. Do this twice or thrice with fresh Milk and Water. This will take
away all the rankness and slimyness of them. Then Butter them, or prepare
them for the table, as you think fit.
TOSTS OF VEAL
My Lady Lusson makes thus her plain tosts of kidney of Veal: Cut the kidney
with all the fat about it, and a good piece of the lean flesh besides. Hash
all this as small as you can. Put to it a quarter of a pound of picked and
washed Currants, and as much Sugar, one Nutmeg grated, four yolks and two
whites of new-laid Eggs raw; work all these very well together, seasoning
it with Salt. Spread it thick upon slices of light white-bread cut like
tosts. Then fry them in Butter, such quantity as may boil over the tops of
the tosts.
TO MAKE MUSTARD
The best way of making Mustard is this: Take of the best Mustard-seed
(which is black) for example a quart. Dry it gently in an oven, and beat it
to subtle powder, and searse it. Then mingle well strong Wine-vinegar with
it, so much that it be pretty liquid, for it will dry with keeping. Put to
this a little Pepper beaten small (white is the best) at discretion, as
about a good pugil, and put a good spoonful of Sugar to it (which is not to
make it taste sweet, but rather quick, and to help the fermentation) lay a
good Onion in the bottom, quartered if you will, and a Race of Ginger
scraped and bruised; and stir it often with a Horse-radish root cleansed,
which let always lie in the pot, till it have lost it's vertue, then take a
new one. This will keep long, and grow better for a while. It is not good
till after a month, that it have fermented a while.
Some think it will be the quicker, if the seed be ground with fair water,
in stead of vinegar, putting store of Onions in it.
My Lady Holmeby makes her quick fine Mustard thus: Choose true
Mustard-seed; dry it in an oven, after the bread is out. Beat and searse it
to a most subtle powder. Mingle Sherry-sack with it (stirring it a long
time very well, so much as to have it of a fit consistence for Mustard.
Then put a good quantity of fine Sugar to it, as five or six spoonfuls, or
more, to a pint of Mustard. Stir and incorporate all well together. This
will keep good a long time. Some do like to put to it a little (but a
little) of very sharp Wine-vinegar.
TO MAKE A WHITE-POT
Boil three pints of sweet Cream with a very little Salt and some sliced
Nutmeg. As soon as it begins to boil, take it from the fire. In the mean
time beat the yolks of twelve or fifteen new-laid Eggs very well with some
Rose or Orange-flower-water, and sweeten the Cream to your taste with
Sugar. Then beat three or four spoonfuls of Cream with them, and quickly as
many more; so proceeding, till you have incorporated all the Cream and all
the Eggs. Then pour the Eggs and Cream into a deep dish laid over with
sippets of fine light bread, which will rise up to the top for the most
part. When it is cooled and thickened enough to bear Raisins of the Sun,
strew all over the top with them (well-washed.) Then press a little way
into it with great lumps of raw Marrow. Two bones will suffice. Cover your
dish with another, and set it upon a great pot of boiling water, with a
good space between the water and the dish, that there be room for the hot
steam to rise and strike upon the dish. Keep good fire always under your
pot. In less then an hour (usually) it is baked enough. You will perceive
that, if the Marrow look brown, and be enough baked. If it should continue
longer on the heat, it would melt. You may bake it in an oven if you will;
but it is hard to regulate it so, that it be not too much or too little:
whereas the boiling water is certain. You may strew Ambred Sugar upon it,
either before you set it to bake, or after it is done.
FOR ROSTING OF MEAT
To rost fine meat (as Partridge, Pheasant, Chicken, Pigeon) that it be full
of juyce; baste it as soon as it is through hot, and time to baste, with
Butter. When it is very moist all over, sprinkle flower upon it every
where, that by turning about the fire, it may become a thin crust. Then
baste it no more till the latter end. This crust will keep in all the
juyce. A little before you take it up, baste it again with Butter, and this
will melt away all the crust. Then give it three or four turns of the spit,
that it may make the outside yellow and crisp.
You may also baste such meat with yolks of new-laid Eggs, beaten into a
thin oyl. But with this you continue basting all the while the meat
rosteth.
TO STEW A RUMP OF BEEF
Take a rump of Beef, break all the bones; season it with Pepper and Salt to
your liking; Take three or four Nutmegs, and a quantity of Mace, beat them
grossly; Then take a bunch of very good sweet herbs, and one good Onion cut
in quarters, or Garlike, as you like it. Put in half a pint of White-wine
Vinegar, and one pint of good Claret, one handful of Sugar; and a piece or
two of beef Suet or Butter: shred some Cabbage under and over, and scrape
in a pound of good old Cheese. Put all these into an earthen pot, and let
it stand in an oven with brown-bread four or five hours; but let the pot be
covered close with paste.
TO STEW A RUMP OF BEEF
Take a fat rump of young Beef, as it comes from the Butcher, and take out
all the bones, excepting the tip of it towards the tail that is all fat,
which you cannot take out, without spoiling or defacing or breaking it. But
take out all the thick bones towards the Chine, and the thick Sinews, that
are on the outer sides of the flesh; (which will never become tender with
boiling) so that you have nothing but the pure flesh and fat, without any
bony or tough substance. Then beat well the lean part with a woodden roling
pin, and when you have beaten well one side, turn the other. Then rub it
well with Pepper grosly beaten, and salt; just as you would do, to season a
Venison pasty, making the seasoning higher or gentler according to your
taste. Then lay it in a fit vessel, with a flat bottom (pipkin or kettle as
you have conveniency) that will but just contain it, but so that it may lye
at ease. Or you may tye it up in a loose thin linnen cloth, or boulter, as
they do Capons _à la mode_, or Brawn, or the like. Then put water upon it,
but just to cover it, and boil it close covered a matter of two hours
pretty smartly, so that it be well half boiled. Then take it out of that,
and put it into another fit vessel, or the same cleansed, and put upon it
about two quarts of good strong deep well bodied Claret-wine, and a good
bundle of sweet-herbs, (Penny-royal, Sweet-Marjoram, Winter-savory, Limon
Thyme, &c.) and a good large Onion peeled, and stuck as close with Cloves,
as you can stick it, if you like the taste of Onions. They must be the
strong biting Onions, that are round and red: a little Nutmeg, and some
Mace. Put to the wine about a pint of the Liquor that you have already
boiled the Beef in; and if you would have it strong of the seasoning of
Pepper, and Salt; take the bottom of this Liquor. Thus let it boil very
gently, simpringly, or rather stew with Char-coal over a little furnace, or
a fit Chafing-dish, a matter of three hours, close covered. If the Liquor
waste too much, you may recruit it with what you have kept of that, which
your beef was boiled in. When it is near time to take it up, stew some
Oysters in their own Liquor (to which you may add at the latter end, some
of the winy Liquor, that the Beef is now stewing in, or some of the first
Beef-broth, or use some good pickled Oysters) and at the same time make
some thin tostes of Kingstone manchet, which toste very leisurely, or
rather dry them throughly, and very hard, and Crisp, but not burned, by
lying long before the fire. And if you have fresh Champignons, dress a good
dish full of them, to be ready at the same time, when all the rest is
ready; If not, use pickled ones, without further dressing. When you find
your Beef is as tender as can be, and will scarcely hold together, to be
taken up together, and that all the other things are ready, lay the tostes
in the dish, where the Beef is to lye; pour some of the Liquor upon it.
Then lay the Beef upon the tosts; throw away the bundle of Herbs and
Onions; and pour the rest of the Liquor upon the Beef, as also the
Oysters, and the Mushrooms, to which add a pretty deal, about half a pint
of Broom-buds: and so let it stand a while well covered over coals to
Mittoner; and to have all the several substances communicate their tastes
to one another, and to have the tostes swell up like a gelly. Then serve it
up. If you want Liquor, you may still recruit your self out of the first
Beef-broth, which you keep all to supply any want afterwards. Have a care,
whiles it is stewing, in the Winy-liquor, to lift the flesh sometimes up
from the bottom of the vessel, least if it should lye always still, it may
stick to the bottom, and burn; but you cannot take it out, for it would
fall in pieces. It will be yet better meat, if you add to it, at the last
(when you add all the other heightnings) some Marrow, and some Chess-nuts,
and some Pistachios, if you will. Put to your Broom-buds (before you put
them in to the rest) some elder Vinegar, enough to soak them, and even to
cover them. If you find this make your composition of the whole too sharp,
you may next time take less. When you put the Beef to stew with the wine
(or a while after) you may put to it a pretty quantity (as much as you can
take in both hands at once) of shreded Cabbage, if it be the season; or of
Turneps, if you like either of these. Carrots make it somewhat flat. If the
wine be not quick enough, you may put a little elder Vinegar to it. If you
like Garlike, you may put in a little, or rub the dish with it.
PICKLED CHAMPIGNONS