How To Preserve Butter

Melt it in an earthen vessel, surrounded with warm water. Skim the butter until clear, and pour the pure portion off into pots, which should be filled to the top and closely covered. A little salt may be added before pouring, and should be stirred in, afterwards allowing the butter to clear. Or mix two ounces of salt with one ounce each of saltpetre and white sugar. Add one ounce of this mixture, in fine powder, to each pound of butter, working it well in. The butter must not be used for a month, and the pots containing it must be filled to the brim.

How To Keep Eggs Fresh

Three pounds of quicklime, ten ounces of salt, one ounce of cream of tartar, and a gallon and a half of boiling water. Mix the ingredients, stir, and cover close. The eggs may be covered with the solution the following day. They will keep long, but the shell becomes very brittle. The best time for preserving eggs is from July to September.

How To Keep Eggs

Eggs may be kept good for an indefinite period by the following method: Put them in an open-work basket or colander, and immerse them for a moment in boiling water, letting them stay just long enough to form a film on the inside of the shell, which excludes the air. Then place them in some convenient vessel, small end down, and set them in the coolest part of the cellar, where they will keep till wanted for use.

How To Preserve Eggs

Eggs may be preserved for several months by greasing them all over with melted mutton suet and wedging them close together, with the small end downward, in a box of bran. To keep them for winter use, pour a gallon of boiling water on two quarts of quicklime and half a pound of salt; when cold, mix with it one ounce cream of tartar, and the following day put in the eggs.

How To Boil Spinach

Boil in plenty of water, drain and press the moisture from it between two trenchers; chop it small, put it into a saucepan with a slice of fresh butter, and stir the whole until well mixed. Smooth it in a dish, and send to table.

How To Purify Water

Pounded alum possesses the property of purifying water. A large teaspoonful of pulverized alum sprinkled into a hogshead of water, (the water stirred round at the time,) will, after the lapse of a few hours, by precipitating to the bottom the impure particles, so purify it, that it will be found to possess nearly all the freshness and clearness of pure spring water. A pailful, containing four gallons, may be purified by a single teaspoonful.

How To Keep Pears For Winter Use

Place the pears, stalks upwards, on a deal shelf, in a dry, but not warm place; do not let them touch one another, and give them plenty of air. In store-houses on purpose for keeping fruit, the shelves are usually composed of a series of battens, so that the fruit rests on the edges of them, where they do not join, and so is surrounded by air, and scarcely touches the wood on which it stands. Where space is an object, apples and pears are frequently kept on layers of straw.

How To Mash Turnips

After having been boiled very tender and the water pressed thoroughly from them, put them into a saucepan, and stir constantly for some minutes over a gentle fire; add a little cream, salt, fresh butter and pepper; continue to simmer and stir them for five minutes longer, and then serve them.

How To Brown Flour

Spread it upon a tin plate set upon the stove, or in a very hot oven, and stir continuously after it begins to color until it is brown all through. Keep it in a glass jar, covered closely, and it will always be ready for use.

How To Brown Butter

This is a very simple recipe, but a very useful one. Put a lump of butter into a frying-pan according to the amount of gravy desired. When it is melted, dredge browned flour over it, and stir to a smooth batter until it begins to boil. Use it to color gravies, and, in fact, it can be made into a sauce, or almost anything; and if the sauce is required to be strong and good, celery, onion, vinegar, brown sugar, cayenne, or a glass of wine may be added, but that will be according to the purpose it is required for.

How To Cure A Ham

One ounce of saltpetre, one ounce of black pepper ground, one ounce of juniper berries bruised, one pound of common salt, two pounds of brown sugar; mix all this together, and put on your ham; rub and trim it every day for a month, then hang it up in a chimney where wood is burned.

How To Stuff A Ham

Select a nice ham and boil it; when done, let it get cold before you skin and trim it. Prepare a stuffing of bread crumbs, butter, pepper, parsley, thyme and celery. Begin at the hock, and make incisions with a sharp knife, about an inch apart; put in the stuffing as you draw out the knife. Rub in a bowl the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and brandy sufficient to make a paste; spread it on the ham smoothly, and grate over it bread crumbs; stick in cloves; ornament. Put it in the oven, and let it brown gently. Eaten cold.

How To Cure Tongues

For a tongue that weighs seven pounds, put one ounce of saltpetre, half an ounce of black pepper, two ounces of sugar, and three ounces of juniper berries. In two days it will be fit for cooking. Take care to have the gullet cut away before it is cooked.

How To Mask Turnips

After having been boiled very tender, and the water pressed thoroughly from them, put them into a saucepan, and stir constantly for some minutes over a gentle fire; add a little cream, salt, fresh butter, and pepper; continue to simmer and stir them for five minutes locker, and then serve them.