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Pickles |
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Free Books / Cooking / The American Housewife / | |
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Pickles |
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This section is from the "The American Housewife" book, by Experienced Lady. Also available from Amazon: The American Housewife.
Vinegar for pickling should be good, but not of the sharpest kind. Brass utensils should be used for pickling. They should be thoroughly cleaned before using, and no vinegar should be allowed to cool in them, as the rust formed by so doing is very poisonous. Boil alum and salt in the vinegar, in the proportion of half a tea cup of salt, and a table spoonful of alum, to three gallons of vinegar. Stone and wooden vessels are the only kinds of utensils that are good to keep pickles in. Vessels that have had any grease in will not do for pickles, as no washing will kill the grease that the pot has absorbed. All kinds of pickles should be stirred up occasionally. If there is any soft ones among them, they should be taken out, the vinegar scalded, and turned back while hot - if very weak, throw it away, and use fresh vinegar. Whenever any scum rises, the vinegar needs scalding. If you do not wish to have all your pickles spiced, it is a good plan to keep a stone pot of spiced vinegar by itself, and put in a few of your pickles a short time before they are to be eaten.
Procure those that are fresh and green. If you do not like them very fiery, cut a small slit in them, and take the seeds out carefully with a small knife, so as not to mangle the pepper. Soak them in salt and water, eight or nine days, changing the water each day. Keep them in a warm place. If you like them stuffed, chop white cabbage fine, season it highly with cloves, cinnamon, mace, and fill the peppers with it - add nasturtions if you like - sew them up carefully, and put them in cold spiced vinegar. Tomatoes when very small and green are good pickled with the peppers.
Procure muskmelons as late in the season as possible - if pickled early, they are not apt to keep well. Cut a small piece from the side that lies upon the ground while growing, take out the seeds, and if the citron or nutmeg melons are used for mangoes, the rough part should be scraped off. The long common muskmelons make the best mangoes. Soak the melons in salt and water, three or four days; then take them out of the water; sprinkle on the inside of the melons, powdered cloves, pepper, nutmeg; fill them with small strips of horseradish, cinnamon, and small string beans. Flag root, nasturtions, and radish tops, are also nice to fill them with. Fill the crevices with American mustard seed. Put back the pieces of melon that were cut off, and bind the melon up tight with white cotton cloth, sew it on. Lay the melons in a stone jar, with the part that the covers are on, up. Put into vinegar for the mangoes, alum, salt and peppercorns, in the same proportion as for cucumbers - heat it scalding hot, then turn it on to the melons. Barberries or radish tops pickled in bunches, are a pretty garnish for mangoes. The barberries preserve their natural color best by being first dried. Whenever you wish to use them, turn boiling vinegar ... on them, and let them lie in it several hours to swell out.
The nuts for pickling should be gathered as early as July, unless the season is very backward. When a pin will go through them easily, they are young enough to pickle. Soak them in salt and water a week - then drain it off. Rub them with a cloth, to get off the roughness. To a gallon of vinegar put a tea-cup of salt, a table-spoonful of powdered cloves and mace, mixed together, half an ounce of allspice, and peppercorns. Boil the vinegar and spices, and turn it while hot on to the nuts. In the course of a week, scald the vinegar, and turn it back on them while hot. They will be fit to eat in the course of a fortnight.
Take those of a full growth, but perfectly green, put them in salt and water, strong enough to bear up an egg. When they have been in a week, take them out, and wipe them carefully with a soft cloth. Lay them in a pickle jar. Put to a gallon of vinegar half an ounce of cloves, the same quantity of peppercorns, sliced ginger and mustard seed - add salt, and boil the vinegar - then turn it on to the peaches scalding hot. Turn the vinegar from them several times. Heat it scalding hot, and turn it back while hot.
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