Potatoe Mucilage

Peel and wash a pound of full grown potatoes, grate them on a bread grater into a deep dish containing half a gallon of clear water; strain this through a hair sieve, and pour half a gallon more water through the sieve; save the water, and leave it ten minutes to settle; pour off the water, and fill up the dish again with fresh water, let it settle, and repeat this every ten minutes, as long as the water is stained reddish: you must change the water, and stir it up again*: you will at last find a fine white powder at the bottom of the vessel; lay this on a sheet of paper in a hair sieve to dry, either in the sun, or before the fire, and it is ready for use. A large teaspoonful of this, mixed with a tablespoonful of cold water, will be sufficient to thicken a quart of gravy, into which it must be stirred just before you take it up, and will go as far as a tablespoonful of flour and butter.

Observations

This preparation requires some patience and perseverance, and this is the great secret of making it: it is worth knowing, for it gives a richness and fine fulness on the palate to gravies and sauces at hardly any expense, which by the usual mode of producing an equal degree of consistency, would cost an extravagant sum, and not be better. As it is perfectly tasteless, it * ill not alter the flavour of the most delicate broth, etc.

* The criterion whereby any one making potatoe farina may judge of its being completed, is by the purity of the water that comes from it after stirring it up.

Mrs. Raffald's Browning

Beat to powder four ounces of fine lump sugar; put it into a clean iron frying pan with one ounce of butter; set it over a clear fire, and mix it very well together; when it begins to be frothy . the sugar is dissolving; then hold it higher over the fire, and have ready a pint of red wine: when the sugar and butter are of a deep brown, pour in a little of the wine, stir it thoroughly together, and gradually add the rest of the wine, and keep stirring it all the time; put in half an ounce of allspice, six cloves, four shallots peeled, and two or three blades of mace, three tablespoonsful of mushroom catsup, a little salt, and the rind of a lemon peeled as thin as possible; boil up slowly for ten minutes: pour it into a basin; when cold, take off the scum very clean, and bottle it for use.

Observations

The above is a pleasant sauce; but the cook must remember it will alter the flavour as well as colour of whatever it is added to.

Mrs. Raffald's Lemon Pickle

Take a dozen lemons, grate off the out rinds very thin, cut them in four quarters, but leave the bottoms whole; rub on them equally a quarter of a pound of bay salt, spread them in a large pewter dish, and let them dry gradually by the fire till all the juice is dried into the peels; then put them into a stone jar, with half an ounce of mace, quarter of an ounce of cloves beat fine, half an ounce of nutmeg cut in thin slices, two ounces of garlick peeled, quarter of a pound of mustard-seed bruised a little, and tied in a muslin bag; pour a quart of boiling white wine vinegar upon them, close the pitcher or jar well up, and let it stand five or six days by the fire: shake it well every day, then tie it up as close as possible, and let it stand for three months. When you bottle it, put the pickle and lemon into a hair sieve, press them well, to get out the liquor; let it stand till next day; then pour off the fine and bottle it; let the rest stand three or four days and it will settle; pour off the fine again, and let it again settle till you have poured off all you can get fine. It may be put into any white sauce, and will not hurt the colour; is very good for fish sauce and made dishes, especially of veal; a teaspoonful is enough for white, and two for brow a sauce for a fowl: it is a most useful pickle, and gives a pleasant flavour: be sure you put it in before you thicken the sauce, or put any cream in, lest the sharpness make it curdle.

Observations

"I have given no directions for cullis, as I have found by experience that lemon-pickle and browning answer both for beauty and taste, (at a trifling expense,) better than the most extravagant cullisses. Had I known the use and value of these two receipts when I first took upon me the part and duty of a housekeeper, they would have saved me a great deal of trouble in making gravy, and those I served a great deal of expense." Seethe preface to Raffald's Cookery, London, 8vo. 1806. We suppose Mrs R's. praise of these two sauces to be well deserved, as they have been copied into almost every cookery book that has gone to press since.