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pound and a half of butter; when done, cut it into small pieces, pick out the gristle and skin and beat it in a mortar, adding half the butter it was baked in, with one dram of pounded mace, the same of allspice, and salt and pepper to taste; when it is very smooth, put it into pots, and cover it with the remainder of the butter it was baked in.

Anchovy Paste is so much adulterated with starch and flour, and worse things, that the best way is to make the paste at home. For this purpose, get the finest Gorgona anchovies-the flesh of deep pink colour-bone them, and beat them in a marble mortar to a paste, which press into small shallow pots, and cover with clarified butter. If the paste be required for deviled biscuits, add cayenne pepper.

Potted Prawns or Shrimps.-Take prawns or shrimps that have been boiled, and pick them very clean, saving the heads and skins, which must be put into a sauce-pan with butter, mace, a little salt, and cayenne pepper, and simmered ten minutes. Strain the butter through a fine sieve; and having cleaned the sauce-pan, return it over the fire one minute, with the shrimps in it. Just let it boil, and then take out the shrimps, which place in pots with care; and as they cool, press them closely down; pour over them the butter, equally dividing it; and when cold, put more butter on them. (Robinson.) Another method is to beat the shrimps to a paste in a marble mortar, with the seasoning.

To pickle Oysters.-In opening them, take care to preserve their liquor, to which add an equal quantity of vinegar, a glass of white wine, a blade or two of mace, some whole peppercorns, and a little salt. Boil this up for about five minutes, taking care to skim it; then put in the oysters; let them simmer very gently for about ten minutes; put them with the liquor into jars, or wide-mouthed bottles, and tie over.

Potted Mushrooms.-Mushrooms can be preserved for two or three days, to be as good as freshly gathered, if covered in the following manner: Peel the mushrooms, cut off the stems, and sprinkle a little salt in the inside of the flap, and put on each flap a bit of clarified marrow about the size of a very small bean, and place them one over the other in half-pint or pint jars (the outer side down and the flap up); put the jars to stand in vessels of boiling water, and let them simmer slowly, with a bladder on the top of the jar, for an hour or two, according to the number and thickness of the mushrooms; then put them away in a cold place. These mushrooms will be good for several days, and taste as if freshly gathered. When used, take off the marrow, if it has congealed on the surface, and put the mushrooms on a soup plate upon squares of toast saturated with their own gravy, which will have exuded from them in the jars; put another soup plate on the top, and warm the whole over a sauce-pan of boiling water. The stems and peelings of mushrooms ought to be chopped up as soon as they are taken off, and put into small jars, with a little salt, and simmered with boiling water round them, in the same manner as the mushrooms: the liquor from them can be used while fresh for flavouring sauces and hashes.1

To bake Beet-Root, wash it, and wipe it very dry, but neither cut nor break any part of it; then lay it in a coarse dish, and bake it in a slack oven four or five hours, or till quite tender; peel it quickly, if to be served hot, and cut it in slices. Or, Beet-Root, baked or boiled, may be sliced, and stewed in veal-gravy thickened, or in thick white sauce, 1 Good Cookery Illustrated: Appendix, p. 470.

HOME-MADE WINES-LIQUEURS

SUMMER DRINKS.

HE manufacturers of British Wines for sale employ the first wort of malt instead of water, to supply the deficiency of sugar in our native fruits: they find this plan economical, especially when beer is made from the good remaining in the malt, after enough wort has been obtained for the wine.

Notwithstanding all that has been said against home-made wines (Cobbett says they are excellent stuff to catch flies), excellent wine can be made from British fruits. A correspondent of Loudon's Gardener's Magazine states that 'I have wine by me now, made from ripe gooseberries, nineteen years old, which is perfectly sound. The wine now drunk by my family is twelve years old; and if it has any fault, it is that it is too strong: it never had any spirits added to it, of any kind; all the alcohol it contains is genuine, the product of the fruit and sugar.'

In a fine season, equal quantities of pure fruit-juice and water will be a good proportion: in an unfavourable year, the juice may admit of only one-third water being added.

If the fermentation be slow, it should not be quickened by yeast, which mostly spoils wines; but one ounce of crude tartar may be added to each gallon of liquor, the sweetest requiring the most.

Spirits are sometimes added to check fermentation: this they fail to do, and mostly spoil the flavour of the best wine. Grapes of British growth make excellent wines. Dr. Macculloch made wines from unripe grapes and sugar, so closely resembling Champagne, Grave, Rhenish, and Moselle, that the best judges could not distinguish them from foreign wines. The grapes may be used in any state, however unripe; when even but half grown and perfectly hard, they succeed completely. Superior wine is made from the pure juice of Grapes, with from 1 lb. to 2 lbs. of sugar, and I oz. of crude tartar to each gallon. A superior Elder Wine may be made, by using, instead of raw sugar, 4 lbs. of loafsugar to every gallon of mixed juice and water. Wine may be made with ripe white or yellow Gooseberries and loafsugar, which will closely resemble Moselle. Wine may be made with White Currants little inferior to Lisbon; and with Black Currants, a fine wine may be made to imitate Constantia. Blackberry Wine is made in France by boiling together five gallons of ripe blackberries, seven pounds of honey, and six gallons of water; strain the liquor, boil it again, and put it into a cask to ferment.

Ripe Grape Wine.-This is the finest of all home-made. wines. In a plentiful year, fifteen pounds of grapes, or even twenty pounds, should be used to each gallon of water. They should be picked from the stalks, and slightly broken with the hand; let them stand for three days, when press them, draw off the liquor, and wash any remaining flavour from the husks. Add two pounds of strong sugar to each gallon of the juice and water, and draw it off into a cask to ferment: examine it carefully once a week; and when the fermentation has nearly subsided, rack it off. Bung it down close for six months, and it will then be fit to tap.

Raisins and Raisin Wine.-The superiority of wine made

dried grapes, Raisins are

from Raisins over most other wines of British manufacture, is not surprising, if we recollect that raisins are and that grapes produce the only true wine. produced from various species of vines, deriving their names partly from the place where they grow, as Smyrnas, Valentias, etc.; and partly from the species of grape of which they are made, as muscatels, blooms, sultanas, etc. Their quality, however, appears to depend more on the method of their cure than on anything else. The finest raisins are cured in two methods: either by cutting the stalk of the bunches half through when the grapes are nearly ripe, and leaving them suspended on the vine till the watery part be evaporated, and the sun dries and candies them; or by gathering the grapes when they are fully ripe, and dipping them in a ley made of the ashes of burnt tendrils, after which they are exposed to the sun to dry. Those cured in the first way are most esteemed, and are denominated raisins of the sun. The inferior sorts are very often dried in ovens. The best raisins for wine are the muscatel, to be bought cheap when they have remained unsold for about a year. A good proportion is three pounds of raisins, chopped, and one pound of sugar, to each gallon of water. If the raisins be mashed with hot water instead of being macerated in cold water, and the husks be not fermented, the wine will have an Elder-flower or Frontignac flavour. April and October are good seasons for making raisin wine. That made in the former month should be bottled in March following; and that made in October should be bottled about the middle of the September following.

Wine from Mixed Fruits.-Mix white, red, and black currants; strawberries, raspberries, cherries, plums, and red gooseberries; press the juice from them, and mix it with an equal quantity of water, or use two-thirds juice and one

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