leaves, and see that there be no caterpillars about the stalk. Soak them
an hour in cold water, then boil them in milk and water, and take care
to skim the saucepan, that not the least foulness may fall on the
flower. The vegetable should be served very white, and not boiled too
much.--Cauliflower dressed in white sauce should be half boiled, and cut
into handsome pieces. Then lay them in a stewpan with a little broth, a
bit of mace, a little salt, and a dust of white pepper. Simmer them
together half an hour; then add a little cream, butter, and flour.
Simmer a few minutes longer, and serve them up.--To dress a cauliflower
with parmesan, boil the vegetable, drain it on a sieve, and cut the
stalk so that the flower will stand upright about two inches above the
dish. Put it into a stewpan with a little white sauce, and in a few
minutes it will be done enough. Then dish it with the sauce round, put
parmesan grated over it, and brown it with a salamander.
CAULIFLOWERS RAGOUT. Pick and wash the cauliflowers very clean, stew
them in brown gravy till they are tender, and season with pepper and
salt. Put them in a dish, pour gravy on them, boil some sprigs of
cauliflower white, and lay round.
CAYENNE. Those who are fond of this spice had better make it themselves
of English capsicums or chillies, for there is no other way of being
sure that it is genuine. Pepper of a much finer flavour may be obtained
in this way, without half the heat of the foreign article, which is
frequently adulterated and coloured with red lead. Capsicums and
chillies are ripe and in good condition, during the months of September
and October. The flavour of the chillies is superior to that of the
capsicums, and will be good in proportion as they are dried as soon as
possible, taken care that they be not burnt. Take away the stalks, put
the pods into a cullender, and set them twelve hours before the fire to
dry. Then put them into a mortar, with one fourth their weight of salt;
pound and rub them till they are as fine as possible, and put the powder
into a well-stopped bottle. A hundred large chillies will produce about
two ounces of cayenne. When foreign cayenne is pounded, it is mixed with
a considerable portion of salt, to prevent its injuring the eyes: but
English chillies may be pounded in a deep mortar without any danger, and
afterwards passed through a fine sieve.
CELERY SAUCE. Cut small half a dozen heads of clean white celery, with
two sliced onions. Put them into a stewpan, with a small piece of
butter, and sweat them over a slow fire till quite tender. Add two
spoonfuls of flour, half a pint of broth, salt and pepper, and a little
cream or milk. Boil it a quarter of an hour, and pass it through a fine
hair sieve with the back of a spoon. When celery is not in season, a
quarter of a dram of celery seed, or a little of the essence, will
impregnate half a pint of sauce with all the flavour of the vegetable.
This sauce is intended for boiled turkey, veal, or fowls.
CELERY SOUP. Split half a dozen heads of celery into slips about two
inches long, wash them well, drain them on a hair sieve, and put them
into a soup pot, with three quarts of clear gravy. Stew it very gently
by the side of the fire, about an hour, till the celery is tender. If
any scum arise, take it off, and season with a little salt. When celery
cannot be procured, half a dram of the seed, pounded fine, will give a
flavour to the soup, if put in a quarter of an hour before it is done. A
little of the essence of the celery will answer the same purpose.
CELLARS. Beer and ale that have been well brewed, are often injured or
spoiled in the keeping, for want of paying proper attention to the
state of the cellar. It is necessary however to exclude as much as
possible all external air from these depositaries, as the state of the
surrounding atmosphere has a most material influence upon the liquor,
even after it has been made a considerable time. If the cellar is liable
to damps in the winter, it will tend to chill the liquor, and make it
turn flat; or if exposed to the heat of summer, it will be sure to turn
sour. The great object therefore is to have a cellar that is both cool
and dry. Dorchester beer, generally in high esteem, owes much of its
fineness to this circumstance. The soil in that county being very
chalky, of a close texture and free from damps, the cellars are always
cool and dry, and the liquors are found to keep in the best possible
manner. The Nottingham ale derives much of its celebrity also from the
peculiar construction of the cellars, which are generally excavated out
of a rock of sand-stone to a considerable depth, of a circular or
conical form, with benches formed all round in the same way, and on
these the barrels are placed in regular succession.
CERATE. Half a pound of white wax, half a pound of calumine stone finely
powdered, and a pint and a half of olive oil, will make an excellent
cerate. Let the calumine be rubbed smooth with some of the oil, and
added to the rest of the oil and wax, which should be previously melted
together. Stir them together till they are quite cold.
CHARDOONS. To dress chardoons, cut them into pieces of six inches long,
and tie them in a bunch. Boil them tender, then flour and fry them with
a piece of butter, and when brown serve them up. Or tie them in bundles,
and serve them on toast as boiled asparagus, with butter poured over.
Another way is to boil them, and then heat them up in fricassee sauce.
Or boil in salt and water, dry them, dip them into butter, fry, and
serve them up with melted butter. Or having boiled, stew, and toss them
up with white or brown gravy. Add a little cayenne, ketchup, and salt,
and thicken with a bit of butter and flour.
CHARLOTTE. Rub a baking-dish thick with butter, and line the bottom and
sides with very thin slices of white bread. Put in layers of apples
thinly sliced, strewing sugar between, and bits of butter, till the dish
is full. In the mean time, soak in warm milk as many thin slices of
bread as will cover the whole; over which lay a plate, and a weight to
keep the bread close on the apples. To a middling sized dish use half a
pound of butter in the whole, and bake slowly for three hours.
CHEAP SOUP. Much nutricious food might be provided for the poor and
necessitous, at a very trifling expence, by only adopting a plan of
frugality, and gathering up the fragments, that nothing be lost. Save
the liquor in which every piece of meat, ham, or tongue has been boiled,
however salt; for it is easy to use only a part of it, and to add a
little fresh water. Then, by the addition of more vegetables, the bones
of meat used in the family, the pieces of meat that come from table on
the plates, and rice, Scotch barley, or oatmeal, there will be some
gallons of useful soup saved. The bits of meat should only be warmed in
the soup, and remain whole; the bones and sinewy parts should be boiled
till they yield their nourishment. If the fragments are ready to put
into the boiler as soon as the meat is served, it will save lighting the
fire, and a second cooking. Take turnips, carrots, leeks, potatoes,
leaves of lettuce, or any sort of vegetable that is at hand; cut them
small, and throw in with the thick part of peas, after they have been
pulped for soup, and grits, or coarse oatmeal, which have been used for
gruel. Should the soup be poor of meat, the long boiling of the bones,
and different vegetables, will afford better nourishment than the
laborious poor can generally obtain; especially as they are rarely
tolerable cooks, and have not fuel to do justice to what they buy. In
almost every family there is some superfluity; and if it be prepared
with cleanliness and care, the benefit will be very great to the
receiver, and the satisfaction no less to the giver. The cook or servant
should never be allowed to wash away as useless, the peas or grits of
which soup or gruel have been made, broken potatoes, the green heads of
celery, the necks and feet of fowls, and particularly the shanks of
mutton; all of which are capable of adding flavour and richness to the
soup. The bones, heads, and fins of fish, containing a portion of
isinglass, may also be very usefully applied, by stewing them in the
water in which the fish is boiled, and adding it to the soup, with the
gravy that is left in the dish. If strained, it considerably improves
the meat soup, particularly for the sick; and when such are to be
supplied, the milder parts of the spare bones and meat should be used,
with very little of the liquor of the salt meats. If a soup be wanted
for the weakly and infirm, put two cow heels and a breast of mutton into
a large pan, with four ounces of rice, one onion, twenty corns of
Jamaica pepper, and twenty black, a turnip, and carrot, and four gallons
of water. Cover it with white paper, and bake it six hours.
CHEESE. This well-known article of domestic consumption, is prepared
from curdled milk, cleared from the whey. It differs very much in
quality and flavour, according to the pasture in which the cows feed,
and the manner in which the article itself is made. The same land rarely
produces very fine butter, and remarkably fine cheese; yet with proper
management, it may give one pretty good, where the other excels in
quality. Cheese made on the same land, from new milk, skimmed or mixed
milk, will differ greatly, not only in richness, but also in taste.
Valuable cheese may be made from a tolerable pasture, by taking the
whole of two meals of milk, and proportioning the thickness of the vat
to the quantity, rather than having a wide and flat one, as the former
will produce the mellowest cheese. The addition of a pound of fresh-made
butter of a good quality, will cause the cheese made on poor land to be
of a very different quality from that usually produced by it. A few
cheeses thus made, when the weather is not extremely hot, and when the
cows are in full feed, are well adapted to the use of the parlour.
Cheese for common family use may very well be produced by two meals of
skim, and one of new milk; or on good land, by the skim milk only. The
principal ingredient in making cheese is the rennet, maw, or inner part
of a calf's stomach, which is cleaned, salted, and hung up in paper bags
to dry. The night before it is used, it is washed and soaked in a little
water. When the milk is ready, being put into a large tub, warm a part
of it to the degree of new milk; but if made too hot, the cheese will be
tough. Pour in as much rennet as will curdle the milk, and then cover it
over. Let it stand till completely turned; then strike the curd down
several times with the skimming dish, and let it separate, still keeping
it covered. There are two modes of breaking the curd, and there will be
a difference in the taste of the cheese, according as either is
observed. One is to gather it with the hands very gently towards the
side of the tub, letting the whey pass through the fingers till it is
cleared; and lading it off as it collects. The other is, to get the
whey from it by early breaking the curd. The last method deprives it of
many of its oily particles, and is therefore less proper. In pursuing
the process, put the vat on a ladder over the tub, and fill it with curd
by means of the skimmer. Press the curd close with the hand, add more as
it sinks, and finally leave it two inches above the edge. Before the vat
is filled, the cheesecloth must be laid at the bottom; and when full,
drawn smooth over on all sides. In salting the cheese, two modes may be
adopted; either by mixing it in the curd while in the tub, after the
whey is out, or by putting it in the vat, and crumbling the curd all to
pieces with it, after the first squeezing with the hand has dried it.
These different methods prevail in the different parts of the country.
Put a board under and over the vat, and place it in the press: in two
hours turn it out, and put in a fresh cheesecloth. Press it again for
eight or nine hours, salt it all over, and turn it again in the vat. Let
it stand in the press fourteen or sixteen hours, observing to put the
cheeses last made undermost. Before putting them the last time into the
vat, pare the edges if they do not look smooth. The vat should have
holes at the sides, and at the bottom, to let all the whey pass through.
Put on clean boards, and change and scald them. When cheese is made,
care must be taken to preserve it sound and good. For this purpose wash
it occasionally in warm whey, wipe it once a month, and keep it on a
rack. If wanted to ripen soon, a damp cellar will bring it forward. When
a whole cheese is cut, the inside of the larger quantity should be
spread with butter, and the outside wiped, to preserve it. To keep those
in daily use moist, let a clean cloth be wrung out from cold water, and
wrapt round them when carried from the table. Dry cheese may be used to
advantage to grate for serving with macaroni or eating without; and any
thing tending to prevent waste, is of some consequence in a system of
domestic economy. To preserve cheeses from decay, lay them in an airy
situation, and cover them with dried leaves of the yellow star of
Bethlehem. The tender branches of the common birch, will prevent the
ravages of mites. If cheese get hard, and lose its flavour, pour some
sweet wine over four ounces of pearlash, till the liquor ceases to
ferment. Filter the solution, dip into it some clean linen cloths, cover
the cheese with them, and put in a cool dry place. Turn the cheese every
day, repeat the application for some weeks, and the cheese will recover
its former flavour and goodness.
CHEESECAKES. Strain the whey from the curd of two quarts of milk; when
rather dry, crumble it through a coarse sieve. With six ounces of fresh
butter, mix one ounce of blanched almonds pounded, a little
orange-flower water, half a glass of raisin wine, a grated biscuit, four
ounces of currants, some nutmeg and cinnamon in fine powder. Beat them
up together with three eggs, and half a pint of cream, till quite light:
then fill the pattipans three parts full.--To make a plainer sort of
cheesecakes, turn three quarts of milk to curd; break it and drain off
the whey. When quite dry, break it in a pan, with two ounces of butter,
till perfectly smooth. Add a pint and a half of thin cream or good milk,
a little sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and three ounces of
currants.--Another way is to mix the curd of three quarts of milk, a
pound of currants, twelve ounces of Lisbon sugar, a quarter of an ounce
of cinnamon, the same of nutmeg, the peel of one lemon chopped as fine
as possible, the yolks of eight and the whites of six eggs, a pint of
scalded cream and a glass of brandy. Put a light thin puff paste in the
pattipans, and three parts fill them.
CHEESE PUFFS. Strain some cheese curd from the whey, and beat half a
pint of it fine in a mortar, with a spoonful and a half of flour, three
eggs, but only one white. Add a spoonful of orange-flower water, a
quarter of a nutmeg, and sugar to make it pretty sweet. Lay a little of
this paste, in small round cakes, on a tin plate. If the oven be hot, a
quarter of an hour will bake them. Serve the puffs with pudding sauce.
CHERRY BRANDY. Stone ten pounds of black cherries, bruise the stones in
a mortar, and put them to a gallon of the best brandy. Let it stand a
month close covered, pour it clear from the sediment, and bottle it.
Morella cherries managed in this way will make a fine rich cordial.
CHERRY JAM. To twelve pounds of ripe fruit, Kentish or duke cherries,
weigh one pound of sugar. Break the stones of part, and blanch them;
then put them to the fruit and sugar, and boil all gently till the jam
comes clear from the pan. Pour it into china plates to come up dry to
the table, and keep it in boxes with white paper between.
CHERRY PIE. This should have a mixture of other fruit; currants or
raspberries, or both. Currant pie is also best with raspberries.
CHERRY WINE. Mash some ripe cherries, and press them through a hair
sieve. Allow three pounds of lump sugar to two quarts of juice, stir
them together till the sugar is dissolved, and fill a small barrel with
the liquor. Add a little brandy, close down the bung when it has done
hissing, let it stand six months and bottle it off.
CHERRIES IN BRANDY. Weigh some fine morellas, cut off half the stalk,
prick them with a new needle, and drop them into a jar or wide-mouth
bottle. Pound three quarters of the weight of sugar or white candy, and
strew over; fill the bottle up with brandy, and tie a bladder over.
CHERVIL SAUCE. The flavour of this fine herb, so long a favourite with
the French cook, is a strong concentration of the combined taste of
parsley and fennel, but more aromatic and agreeable than either, and
makes an excellent sauce for boiled poultry or fish. Wash the chervil,
and pick it very clean; put a tea-spoonful of salt into half a pint of
boiling water, boil the chervil about ten minutes, drain it on a sieve,
and mince it very fine. Put it into a sauce boat, mix with it by degrees
some good melted butter, and send it up in the boat.
CHESHIRE CHEESE. In preparing this article, the evening's milk is not
touched till the next morning, when the cream is taken off and warmed in
a pan, heated with boiling water; one third part of the milk is heated
in a similar manner. The cows being milked early in the morning, the new
milk, and that of the preceding night thus prepared, are poured into a
large tub along with the cream. A piece of rennet kept in lukewarm water
since the preceding evening, is put into the tub in order to curdle the
milk, and the curd is coloured by an infusion of marigolds or carrots
being rubbed into it. It is then stirred together, covered up warm, and
allowed to stand about half an hour till it is coagulated; when it is
first turned over with a bowl to separate the whey from the curds, and
broken soon after into small pieces. When it has stood some time, the
whey is taken out, and a weight laid at the bottom of the tub to press
out the remainder. As soon as it becomes more solid, it is cut into
slices, and turned over several times to extract all the whey, and again
pressed with weights. Being taken out of the tub, it is broken very
small, salted, and put into a cheese vat. It is then strongly pressed
and weighted, and wooden skewers are placed round the cheese, which are
frequently drawn out. It is then shifted out of the vat with a cloth
placed at the bottom; and being turned it is put into the vat again. The
upper part is next broken by the hand down to the middle, salted,
pressed, weighted, and skewered as before, till all the whey is
extracted. The cheese is then reversed into another vat, likewise warmed
with a cloth under it, and a tin hoop put round the upper part of the
cheese. These operations take up the greater part of the forenoon; the
pressing of the cheese requires about eight hours more, as it must be
twice turned in the vat, round which thin wire skewers are passed, and
shifted occasionally. The next morning it ought to be turned and pressed
again; and on the following day the outside is salted, and a cloth
binder tied round it. The outsides are sometimes rubbed with butter, in
order to give them a coat; and being turned and cleaned every day, they
are left to dry two or three weeks.
CHICKENS. Fowls are chiefly considered as an article of luxury, and are
generally sold at a high price; yet the rearing of them is seldom
productive of much pecuniary advantage. They are liable to innumerable
accidents in their early stages, which require incessant watchfulness
and care; and if the grain on which they feed is to be purchased, the
labour and expence are scarcely requited by the price they bear in the
market. The Irish peasantry are in the habit of rearing a great number
of fowls, by substituting the offal of potatoes instead of grain; but
the flesh is neither so firm nor so good as that of chickens raised in
England. It is much to be desired therefore, that encouragement could be
given to the cottagers of this country for rearing a larger quantity of
poultry, by means less expensive than the present, in order that the
market might be supplied on better terms with an article of food so fine
and delicate, and in such general respect. Various artificial means have
been used for brooding chickens, in order to increase their number, and
to bring them forward at an earlier season, but none of them have been
found to answer, though in Egypt immense quantities are raised every
year by the heat of ovens, bringing the eggs to a state of maturity. A
well-fed hen is supposed to lay about two hundred eggs in a year; but as
she does not sit more than once or twice in that time, it is but a small
quantity of chickens that can be hatched in the usual way, and it would
be highly desirable if some other expedient could be devised.--The most
expeditious way of fattening chickens is to mix a quantity of rice flour
sufficient for present use, with milk and a little coarse sugar, and
stir it over the fire till it comes to a thick paste. Feed the chickens
with it while it is warm by putting as much into their coops as they can
eat; and if a little beer be given them to drink, it will fatten them
very soon. A mixture of oatmeal and treacle made into crumbs is also
good food for chickens; and they are so fond of it, that they will grow
and fatten much faster than in the common way. Poultry in general should
be fed in coops, and kept very clean. Their common food is barley meal
mixed with water: this should not be put in troughs, but laid upon a
board, which should be washed clean every time fresh food is put upon
it. The common complaint of fowls, called the pip, is chiefly occasioned
by foul and heated water being given them. No water should be allowed,
more than is mixed up with their food; but they should often be provided
with some clean gravel in their coop.--The method of fattening poultry
for the London market, is liable to great objection. They are put into a
dark place, and crammed with a paste made of barley meal, mutton suet,
treacle or coarse sugar, mixed with milk, which makes them ripe in about
a fortnight; but if kept longer, the fever that is induced by this
continual state of repletion, renders them red and unsaleable, and
frequently kills them. Air and exercise are as indispensable to the
health of poultry as to other animals; and without it, the fat will be
all accumulated in the cellular membrane, instead of being dispersed
throughout the system. A barn-door fowl is preferable to any other, only
that it cannot be fatted in so short a time.
CHICKEN BROTH. Having boiled a chicken for panada, take off the skin and
the rump, and put it into the water it was boiled in. Add one blade of
mace, a slice of onion, and ten corns of white pepper. Simmer it till
the broth be of a pleasant flavour, adding a little water if necessary.
Beat a quarter of an ounce of sweet almonds with a tea-spoonful of water
till it is quite fine, boil it in the broth, and strain it. When cold,
remove the fat.
CHICKEN CURRIE. Cut up the chicken raw, slice onions, and fry both in
butter with great care, of a fine light brown; or if chickens that have
been dressed are used, fry only the onions. Having cut the joints into
two or three pieces each, lay them in a stewpan, with veal or mutton
gravy, and a clove or two of garlic. Simmer till the chicken is quite
tender. Half an hour before serving it up, rub smooth a spoonful or two
of currie powder, a spoonful of flour, and an ounce of butter; and add
this to the stew, with four large spoonfuls of cream, and a little salt.
Squeeze in a small lemon, when the dish is going to table.--A more easy
way to make currie is to cut up a chicken or young rabbit; if chicken,
take off the skin. Roll each piece in a mixture of a large spoonful of
flour, and half an ounce of currie powder. Slice two or three onions,
and fry them in butter, of a light brown; then add the meat, and fry all
together till the meat begin to brown. Put all into a stewpan, cover it
with boiling water, and simmer very gently two or three hours. If too
thick, add more water half an hour before serving. If the meat has been
dressed before, a little broth will be better than water, but the currie
is richer when made of fresh meat. Slices of underdone veal, turkey, or
rabbit, will make excellent currie. A dish of rice boiled dry should be
served with it.