them of the last nights growth; and to preserve them white, it is well to
cast them into a pitcher of fair-water, as you gather them: But that is not
absolutely necessary, if you will go about dressing them as soon as you
come home. Cut the great ones into halves or quarters, seeing carefully
there be no worms in them; and peel off their upper skin on the tops: the
little ones, peel whole. As you peel them, throw them into a bason of
fair-water, which preserves them white. Then put them into a pipkin or
possnet of Copper (no Iron) and put a very little water to them, and a
large proportion of Salt. If you have a pottle of Mushrooms, you may put to
them ten or twelve spoonfuls of water, and two or three of Salt. Boil them
with pretty quick-fire, and scum them well all the while, taking away a
great deal of foulness, that will rise. They will shrink into a very little
room. When they are sufficiently parboiled to be tender, and well cleansed
of their scum, (which will be in about a quarter of an hour,) take them
out, and put them into a Colander, that all the moisture may drain from
them. In the mean time make your pickle thus: Take a quart of pure sharp
white Wine Vinegar (elder-Vinegar is best) put two or three spoonfuls of
whole Pepper to it, twenty or thirty Cloves, one Nutmeg quartered, two or
three flakes of Mace, three Bay-leaves; (some like Limon-Thyme and
Rose-mary; but then it must be a very little of each) boil all these
together, till the Vinegar be well impregnated with the Ingredients, which
will be in about half an hour. Then take it from the fire, and let it cool.
When the pickle is quite cold, and the Mushrooms also quite cold, and
drained from all moisture: put them into the Liquor (with all the
Ingredients in it) which you must be sure, be enough to cover them. In ten
or twelve days, they will have taken into them the full taste of the
pickle, and will keep very good half a year. If you have much supernatant
Liquor, you may parboil more Mushrooms next day, and put them to the first.
If you have not gathered at once enough for a dressing, you may keep them
all night in water to preserve them white, and gather more the next day, to
joyn to them.
TO STEW WARDENS OR PEARS
Pare them, put them into a Pipkin, with so much Red or Claret Wine and
water, _ana_, as will near reach to the top of the Pears. Stew or boil
gently, till they grow tender, which may be in two hours. After a while,
put in some sticks of Cinnamon bruised and a few Cloves. When they are
almost done, put in Sugar enough to season them well and their Syrup, which
you pour out upon them in a deep Plate.
TO STEW APPLES
Pare them and cut them into slices. Stew them with Wine and Water as the
Pears, and season them in like manner with Spice. Towards the end sweeten
them with Sugar, breaking the Apples into Pap by stirring them. When you
are ready to take them off, put in good store of fresh-butter, and
incorporate it well with them, by stirring them together. You stew these
between two dishes. The quickest Apples are the best.
PORTUGUEZ EGGS
The way that the Countess de Penalva makes the Portuguez Eggs for the
Queen, is this. Take the yolks (clean picked from the whites and germ) of
twelve new-laid Eggs. Beat them exceedingly with a little (scarce a
spoonful) of Orange-flower-water. When they are exceeding liquid, clear,
and uniformly a thin Liquor, put to them one pound of pure double refined
Sugar (if it be not so pure, it must be clarified before) and stew them in
your dish or bason over a very gentle fire, stirring them continually,
whiles they are over it, so that the whole may become one uniform
substance, of the consistence of an Electuary (beware they grow not too
hard; for without much caution and attention, that will happen on a sudden)
which then you may eat presently, or put into pots to keep. You may
dissolve Ambergreece (if you will, ground first very much with Sugar) in
Orange-flower or Rose-water, before hand, and put it (warm and dissolved)
to the Eggs, when you set them to stew. If you clarifie your Sugar, do it
with one of these waters, and whites of Eggs. The flavor of these
sweet-waters goeth almost all away with boiling. Therefore half a spoonful
put into the composition, when you take it from the fire, seasoneth it more
then ten times as much, put in at the first.
TO BOIL EGGS
A certain and infallible method to boil new-laid Eggs to sup up, and yet
that they have the white turned to milk, is thus: Break a very little hole,
at the bigger end of the shell, and put it into the water, whiles it
boileth. Let it remain boiling, whiles your Pulse beateth two hundred
stroaks. Then take it out immediately, and you will find it of an exact
temper: others put Eggs into boyling water just as you take it from the
fire, and let them remain there, till the water be so cooled, that you may
just put in your hand, and take out the Eggs.
Others put the Eggs into cold water, which they set upon the fire, and as
soon as the water begins to boil, the Eggs are enough.
TO MAKE CLEAR GELLY OF BRAN
Take two pound of the broadest open Bran of the best Wheat, and put it to
infuse in a Gallon of Water, during two or three days, that the water may
soak into the pure flower, that sticks to the bran. Then boil it three or
four walms, and presently take it from the fire, and strain it through some
fine strainer. A milky substance will come out, which let stand to settle
about half a day. Pour off the clear water, that swimmeth over the starch
or flomery, that is in the bottom (which is very good for Pap, &c.) and
boil it up to a gelly, as you do Harts-horn gelly or the like, and season
it to your taste.
TO BAKE VENISON
Boil the bones (well broken) and remaining flesh of the Venison, from
whence the meat of the Pasty is cut, in the Liquor, wherein Capons and
Veal, or Mutton have been boiled, so to make very strong broth of them. The
bones must be broken, that you may have the Marrow of them in the Liquor;
and they must stew a long time (covering the pot close:) that you may make
the broth as strong as you can; and if you put some gravy of Mutton or Veal
to it, it will be the better. When the Pasty is half baked, pour some of
this broth into it, by the hole at the top; and the rest of it, when it is
quite baked, and wanteth but standing in the oven to soak. Or put it all in
at once, when the Pasty is sufficiently baked, and afterwards let it remain
in the oven a good while soaking.
You may bake the bones (broken) with the broth and gravy, or for want
thereof, with only water in an earthen pot close stopped, till you have all
the substance in the Liquor; which you may pour into the Pasty an hour
before it is baked enough.
If you are in a Park, you may soak the Venison a night in the blood of the
Deer; and cover the flesh with it, clotted together when you put it in
paste. Mutton blood also upon Venison, is very good. You may season your
blood a little with Pepper and Salt.
TO BAKE VENISON TO KEEP
After you have boned it, and cut away all the sinews, then season it with
Pepper and Salt pretty high, and divide a Stag into four pots; then put
about a pound of Butter upon the top of each pot, and cover it with
Rye-past pretty thick. Your oven must be so hot, that after a whole night
it maybe baked very tender, which is a great help to the keeping of it.
And when you draw it, drain all the Liquor from it, and turn your pot upon
a pie plate, with the bottom upwards, and so let it stand, until it is
cold; Then wipe your pot, that no gravy remain therein, and then put your
Venison into the same pot again; then have your Butter very well clarified,
that there be no dross remaining; Then fill up your pot about two Inches
above the meat with Butter, or else it will mould. And so the next day
binde it up very close, with a piece of sheeps Leather so that no air can
get in. After which you may keep it as long as you please.
Master Adrian May put's up His Venison in pots, to keep long, thus:
Immediately as soon as He hath killed it, he seasoneth and baketh it as
soon as He can, so that the flesh may never be cold. And this maketh that
the fat runneth in among the lean, and is like calvered Salmon, and eats
much more mellow and tender. But before the Deer be killed, he ought to be
hunted and chafed as much as may be. Then seasoned and put in the oven
before it be cold. Be sure to pour out all the gravy, that settleth to the
bottom, under the flesh after the baking, before you put the Butter to it,
that is to lie very thick upon the meat, to keep it all the year.
ABOUT MAKING OF BRAWN
It must be a very large oven, that so it may contract the stronger heat,
and keep it the longer. It must be at least eight hours heating with wood,
that it be as hot as is possible. If the Brawn be young, it will suffice
eight hours or a little more in the oven. But if old, it must be ten or
eleven. Put but two Collars into each pot, for bigger are unwieldy. Into
every pot, put twelve corns of whole Pepper, four Cloves, a great Onion
peeled and quartered, and two bay-leaves, before you put them into the
oven. Before they are set in, you do not fill them with water to the top,
least any should spill in sliding them in; but fill them up by a bowl
fastned to a long Pole. No water must be put in, after the oven is closed
(nor the oven ever be opened, till after all is throughly baked) and
therefore you must put in enough at first to serve to the last; you must
rowl your Collars as close as may be, that no air may be left in the folds
of them: and sow them up in exceeding strong cloth, which a strong man must
pull as hard as He can in the sowing. Their cloths must not be pulled off,
till the Collars have been three or four days out of the oven, least you
pull off part of the Brawn with them. You may put the same proportion of
Pepper, Cloves, &c. into the Souce drink as you did in the baking them;
which at either time (especially at first) give them a fine taste. The
Souce-drink is made of six shillings Beer, and Thames or River-water, of
each an equal quantity, well boiled with Salt. When boiled and cold, put in
to it two or three quarts of skimmed Milk, only to colour it; and so change
it once in three Weeks. Tender Brawn sliced thin, and laid Sallet-wise in a
dish as the sliced Capon, and seasoned with Pepper, Salt and Vinegar and
Oyl, with a little Limon, is a very good Sallet.
SALLET OF COLD CAPON ROSTED
It is a good Sallet, to slice a cold Capon thin; mingle with it some
Sibbolds, Lettice, Rocket and Tarragon sliced small. Season all with
Pepper, Salt, Vinegar and Oyl, and sliced Limon. A little Origanum doth
well with it.
MUTTON BAKED LIKE VENISON, SOAKING EITHER IN THEIR BLOOD
Take a large fat loin of Mutton (or two) boned after the manner of Venison.
Season it well to your taste with Pepper and Salt. Then lay it to steep all
night in enough of the sheep's blood, to cover it over, and soak well into
it. Then lay it into the past, with all the clotted thick blood, under it,
upon it, and hanging about it. You may season the blood with Pepper and
Salt, before you lay the meat in it. But though you do not, it will not be
amiss, so as the meat be seasoned high enough. Then bake it as you do an
ordinary Pasty; and you may put gravy of Mutton or strong broth into it.
You may do it in a dish with past; as My Lady of Newport doth Her Venison.
This way of steeping in blood before you bake it, is very good also for
Venison.
TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT HARE-PYE
Hash the flesh of as many Hares, as you please, very small. Then beat them
strongly in a Mortar into a Paste, which season duly with Pepper and Salt.
Lard it throughly all over with great Lardons of Lard well rowled in Pepper
and Salt. Put this into a straight earthen pot, to lye close in it. If you
like Onions, you may put one or two quartered into the bottom of the Pot.
Put store of Sweet-butter upon the meat, and upon that, some strong red
Claret-wine. Cover the pot with a double strong brown paper, tyed close
about the mouth of it. Set it to bake with houshold-bread (or in an oven,
as a Venison pasty) for eight or ten hours. Then take out the pot, and
thence the meat, and pour away all the Liquor, which let settle. Then take
all the congealed Butter, and clarifie it well. Put your meat again into
the pot, and put upon it your clarified Butter, and as much more as is
necessary. And I believe the putting of Claret-wine to it now is better,
and to omit it before. Bake it again, but a less while. Pour out all the
Liquor, when it is baked, and clarifie the Butter again, and pour it upon
the meat, and so let it cool; The Butter must be at least two or three
fingers breadth over the meat.
TO BAKE BEEF
Bone it, and beat it exceeding well on all sides, with a roling pin, upon a
table. Then season it with Pepper and Salt, (rubbing them in very well) and
some Parsley, and a few Sweet herbs (Penny-royal, Winter-savoury,
Sweet-marjoram, Limon Thyme, Red-sage, which yet to some seems to have a
Physical taste) an Onion if you will. Squeese it into the pot as close as
you can. Put Butter upon it, and Claret-wine, and covered all as above.
Bake it in a strong oven eight or ten hours. Take it out of the oven, and
the meat out of the pot, which make clean, from all settlings; and squeese
all the juyce from it (even by a gentle press.) Then put it in again hard
pressed into the pot. Clarifie the Butter, that you poured with the Liquor
from the meat out of the pot; and pour it again with more flesh, to have
enough to cover it two or three fingers thick.
TO BAKE PIDGEONS, (WHICH ARE THUS EXCELLENT, AND WILL KEEP A QUARTER OF A
YEAR) OR TEALS, OR WILD-DUCKS
Season them duly with Pepper and Salt; then lay them in the pot, and put
store of Butter, and some Claret-wine to them. Cover and bake as above: but
a less while according to the tenderness of the meat. In due time take out
your pot, and your birds out of it, which press not, but only wipe off the
Liquor. Pour it out all. Clarifie the Butter; put in the birds again, and
the clarified butter, and as much more as needs (all melted) upon them, and
let it cool. You may put a few Bay-leaves upon any of these baked meats,
between the meat and the Butter.
GREEN-GEESE-PYE
An excellent cold Pye is thus made. Take two fat Green-geese; bone them,
and lay them in paste one upon the other, seasoning them well with Pepper
and Salt, and some little Nutmeg, both above and below and between the two
Geese. When it is well-baked and out of the oven, pour in melted Butter at
a hole made in the top. The crust is much better than of a Stubble-goose.
TO BOIL BEEF OR VENISON TENDER AND SAVOURY
The way to have Beef tenderest, short and best boiled, as my Lord of Saint
Alban's useth it, is thus. Take a rump or brisket of beef; keep it without
salt as long as you may, without danger to have it smell ill. For so it
groweth mellow and tender, which it would not do, if it were presently
salted. When it is sufficiently mortified, rub it well with Salt; let it
lie so but a day and a night, or at most two nights and a day. Then boil it
in no more water then is necessary. Boil it pretty smartly at first, but
afterwards but a simpring or stewing boiling, which must continue seven or
eight hours. Sometimes he boileth it half over night, and the rest next
morning. If you should not have time to Salt it, you may supply that want
thus; When the Beef is through boiled, you may put so much Salt into the
pot as to make the broth like brine, and then boil it gently an hour
longer; or take out the Beef, and put it into a deep dish, and put to it
some of his broth made brine, and cover it with another dish, and stew it
so an hour. A hanch of Venison may be done the same way.
TO BAKE WILDE-DUCKS OR TEALS
Season your Duck and Teal with Pepper and Salt, both within and without, so
much as you think may season them; then crack their bones with a roling
pin; then put them into an earthen pot close, and cover them with Butter,
and bake them in an oven as hot as for bread, and let them stand three or
four hours; when you take them out of the oven, pour out all the Liquor
from them, then melt so much Butter as will cover them; when you have
melted your Butter, let it stand a while, until all the dross be settled to
the bottom, and put in the clear Butter, which must cover the Fowl.
TO SEASON HUMBLE-PYES: AND TO ROST WILDE-DUCKS
Bake Humble-Pyes without chapping them small in a Pye, seasoned with
Pepper and Salt, adding a pretty deal of Parsley, a little sweet-marjoram
and Savoury, and a very little Thyme.
Rost wilde Ducks putting into their Bellies some Sage and a little Onion
(both well shreded) wrought into a lump with butter, adding a little Pepper
and Salt. And let their sauce be a little gravy of Mutton, to enlarge the
seasoned gravy, that comes from the Ducks when they are cut up.
TO SOUCE TURKEYS
Take a good fat Turkey or two; dress them clean, and bone them; then tye
them up in the manner of Sturgeon with some thing clean washed. Take your
kettle, and put into it a pottle of good White-wine, a quart of Water, and
a quart of Vinegar; make it boil, and season it with Salt pretty well. Then
put in your Turkeys, and let them boil till they be very tender. When they
are enough boiled, take them out, and taste the Liquor; if it be not sharp
enough, put more Vinegar, and let it boil a little; then put it into an
earthen pot, that will hold both Turkeys. When it is cold enough, and the
Turkeys through-cold, put them into the Liquor in the Pot, and be sure they
be quite covered with the Liquor; Let them lye in it three weeks or a
month; Then serve it to the table, with Fennel on it, and eat it with elder
Vinegar.
You may do a Capon or two put together in the same manner: but first
larding it with great Lardons rowled in Pepper and Salt. A shorter time
lying in the pickle will serve.
AN EXCELLENT MEAT OF GOOSE OR TURKEY
Take a fat Goose, and Powder it with Salt eight or ten days; Then boil it
tender, and put it into pickle, like Sturgeon-pickle. You may do the like
with a very fat Turkey; but the best pickle of that is, the Italian
Marinating, boiling Mace, Nutmeg, &c. in it. You may boil Garlick in the
belly of the fouls, if you like it, or in the pickle.
TO PICKLE AN OLD FAT GOOSE
Cut it down the back, and take out all the bones; Lard it very well with
green Bacon, and season it well with three quarters of an Ounce of Pepper;
half an Ounce of Ginger; a quarter of an Ounce of Cloves, and Salt as you
judge proportionable; a pint of white wine and some Butter. Put three or
four Bay-leaves under the meat, and bake it with Brown-bread in an earthen
pot close covered, and the edges of the cover closed with Paste. Let it
stand three or four days in the pickle; then eat it cold with Vinegar.
ABOUT ORDERING BACON FOR GAMBONS, AND TO KEEP
At Franckfort they use the following cautions about the Bacon they salt for
Gambons or sides to keep. The best is of male Hogs of two year old, that
have been gelt, when they were young. They kill them in the wane of the
Moon, from a day or two after the full, till the last quarter. They fetch
off their hair with warm-water, not by burning (which melteth the fat, and
maketh it apt to grow resty), and after it hath lain in the open air a full
day, they salt it with dry Salt, rubbing it in well: Then lay what
quantity you will in a tub for seven or eight days (in which time the Salt
dissolveth to water); then take it out, and wipe it dry, and hang it in a
room, where they keep fire, either on a hearth, or that smoak cometh out of
a stove into the room (as most of those rooms do smoak) but hang them not
in the Chimney, that the hot smoak striketh upon them; but if you have a
very large Chimney, hang them pretty high and aside, that the smoak may not
come full upon them. After a while, (when they are dry) take them thence,
and hang them from the smoak in a dry warm room. When the weather groweth
warm as in May, there will drop from them a kinde of melted oyly grease,
and they will heat, and grow resty, if not remedied. Take them down then,
and lay them in a cold dry place, with hay all about them, that one may not
touch another. Change the Hay every thirty, or twenty, or fifteen days,
till September, when the weather groweth cool; then hang them up again in
the free air, in a dry Chamber. If you make the shoulders into Gambons, you
must have a care to cut away a little piece of flesh within, called in
Dutch the Mause; for if that remain in it, the Bacon will grow resty.
TO MAKE A TANSEY
Take Spinage, Sorrel, Tansey, Wheat, a quart of Cream; bread (the quantity
of a two peny loaf) twenty Eggs, and half the whites, one Nutmeg, half a
pound of Sugar, and the juyce of a couple of Limons. Spinage is the chief
herb to have the juyce; Wheat also is very good, when it is young and
tender. You must not take much Sorrel, for fear of turning the Cream; but
less Tansey, so little that it may not taste distinctly in the composition.
The juyce of Limons is put in at the end of all. You may lay thin slices of
Limon upon the Tansey made, and Sugar upon them.
ANOTHER WAY
Beat twelve Eggs (six whites put away) by themselves exceeding well (two or
three hours), sometimes putting in a spoonful of Cream to keep them from
oyling; Then mingle them well with a quart of Cream; to which put about
half a pint of juyce of Spinage (as much as will make the Cream green) or
of green wheat, and four spoonfuls of juyce or Tansey, one Nutmeg scraped
into thin slices, and half a pound of Sugar; All things exceeding well
Incorporated together; Fry this with fresh butter, no more then to glase
the Pan over, and keep the Tansey from sticking to the Pan.
TO MAKE CHEESE-CAKES
Take twelve quarts of Milk warm from the Cow, turn it with a good spoonful
of Runnet. Break it well, and put it into a large strainer, in which rowl
it up and down, that all the Whey may run out into a little tub; when all
that will is run out, wring out more. Then break the curds well; then wring
it again, and more whey will come. Thus break and wring till no more come.
Then work the Curds exceedingly with your hand in a tray, till they become
a short uniform Paste. Then put to it the yolks of eight new laid Eggs, and
two whites, and a pound of butter. Work all this long together.
In the long working (at the several times) consisteth the making them
good. Then season them to your taste with Sugar finely beaten; and put in
some Cloves and Mace in subtile powder. Then lay them thick in Coffins of
fine Paste, and bake them.
SHORT AND CRISP CRUST FOR TARTS AND PYES
To half a peck of fine flower, take a pound and half of Butter, in this
manner. Put your Butter with at least three quarts of cold water (it
imports not how much or how little the water is) into a little kettle to
melt, and boil gently: as soon as it is melted, scum off the Butter with a
ladle, pouring it by ladlefuls (one a little after another, as you knead it
with the flower) to some of the flower (which you take not all at once,
that you may the better discern, how much Liquor is needful) and work it
very well into Paste. When all your butter is kneaded, with as much of the
flower, as serves to make paste of a fitting consistence, take of the water
that the Butter was melted in, so much as to make the rest of the flower
into Paste of due consistence; then joyn it to the Paste made with Butter,
and work them both very well together, of this make your covers and coffins
thin. If you are to make more paste for more Tarts or Pyes, the water that
hath already served, will serve again better then fresh.
To make Goose-pyes, and such of thick crust, you must put at least two
pound of Butter to half a peck of flower. Put no more Salt to your Past,
then what is in the Butter, which must be the best new Butter that is sold
in the Market.
TO MAKE A CAKE
Take eight wine quarts of flower; one pound of loaf Sugar beaten and
searsed; one ounce of Mace, beat it very fine: then take thirty Eggs,
fifteen whites, beat them well; then put to them a quart of new Ale-yest;
beat them very well together, and strain them into your flower; then take a
pint of Rose-water, wherein six grains of Ambergreece and Musk have been
over night. Then take a pint and half of Cream or something more, and set
it on the fire, and put into it four pounds and three quarters of Butter;
And when it is all melted, take it off the fire and stir it about, until it
be pretty cool; And pour all into your flower, and stir it up quick with
your hands, like a lith pudding; Then dust a little flower over it, and let
it stand covered with a Flannel, or other woollen cloth, a quarter of an
hour before the fire, that it may rise; Then have ready twelve pounds of
Currants very well washed and pick'd, that there may be neither stalks, nor
broken Currants in them. Then let your Currants be very well dryed before
the fire, and put warm into your Cake; then mingle them well together with
your hands; then get a tin hoop that will contain that quantity, and butter
it well, and put it upon two sheets of paper well buttered; so pour in your
Cake, and so set it into the oven, being quick that it may be well soaked,
but not to burn. It must bake above an hour and a quarter; near an hour and
half. Take then a pound and half of double refined Sugar purely beaten and
searsed; put into the whites of five Eggs; two or 3 spoonfuls of
rose-water; keep it a beating all the time, that the Cake is a baking which
will be two hours; Then draw your Cake out of the oven, and pick the dry
Currants from the top of it, and so spread all that you have beaten over
it, very smooth, and set it a little into the oven, that it may dry.
ANOTHER CAKE