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TO roast a Pound of Butter or more the Irish Way.--Takea pound of butter, season it well with salt, and put it on a wooden spit; place itat a good distance from the fire, let it turn round, and as the butter moistens orbegins to drip, drudge it well with fine oatmeal, continuing so to do till thereis any moisture ready to drip, then baste it, and it will soon be enough. A certainIrish woman told me this eats vere nicely, insomuch that she has done on aChristmas eve twenty-seven different pounds so, at a farmer's house in hercountry, where it has been kept all the holidays, to accommodate a friend with aslice or two, as we do cakes or minced pies here.

  Another Irish Country Dish.--Boil potatoesand parsnips till they are soft, make them into a mash with some new milk, and adda cabbage boiled tender and cut very small; mix the whole well over the fire withstore of good butter, some salt and pepper, and eat it hot.

  To make a Herricane.--Take slices of turneps,carrots, and some young onions; boil them a little to make them somewhat tender,and after some mutton steaks are fry'd and taken up, put in the parboil'd roots andfry them brown; clear your pan, put in some butter, flower, water, and some gravey(if you have it) and brown it; then put in your meat, &c. to warm, andserve it up.

  To collar a Breast of Mutton.--Bone and skinit; then prepare some seasoning of parsley, a little thyme, onion, pepper and salt,with some small slips of bacon laid cross-ways, and your seasoning spread along it;roll it up, and tie it, setting it up end-ways in the saucepan with some water; coverit close, letting it stew gently till it be very tender; when you think it abouthalf done, turn it.

  To dress a Loin of Mutton.--Skin a loin of mutton,and thrust in long-ways some stuffing of parsley, a little onion, egg, bread, nutmeg,pepper, and salt, and then roast it.

  The best Way to roast Pigeons --Is first tostuff them with parsley chopt very small, some butter, pepper, and salt; tie themclose neck and vent, parboil them, and afterwards roast them. The parboiling makesthem eat pleasanter, plumps them, and they eat not so dry as otherwise; and it takesoff the usual strong tang.

  Jugging Pigeons --Is to put one or more so stuftwithout liquor into a stone or other wide-mouthed earthen pot close tied over withbladder, and so boiled in water till enough.

  To eat raw Cucumers in a wholesome pleasant Manner.--Whenyou have pared and sliced cucumers, put a little water and some salt over them, andlet them stand so about ten minutes; then drain that from them, and just wash themwith a little vinegar, throwing that away likewise, before you put oil and vinegarupon them. This will make them eat much crisper and finer than without such management.--Theaddition of a few green nasturtian pods fresh gathered and eat with them, correctthem, and make them much wholesomer as well as pleasanter, especially to such asdo not chuse to eat onions with them.

  The best Way to pickle Walnuts after the FrenchMethod.--Take fine fresh-gathered succulent walnuts about the latter end of Juneor beginning of July; wipe them well with flannel, and pour upon them rapevinegar enough to cover them. Let it be upon them nine or ten days, then pour itoff into a jar or wide-mouth'd glass vessel, adding thereto a few bay-leaves, somehorse-radish grosly scraped, some black pepper and salt at discretion; stop the vesselclose, and put it by to be used for sauce as kechup, which it far exceeds. Then havingput some pieces of horse-radish, a few bay-leaves, and some whole black pepper betweenevery layer of the nuts, till the jar is near full, fll it up with the stoutest rightwhite-wine vinegar cold, and cover it very close with bladder and leather, and theyare done.--Be sure let no salt touch the nuts, and (thus managed) they will appearbeautifully green, have their natural fine taste, and eat firm and good for fiveyears or more.--This receit with the following one was given by Monsieur Lebat,who says this is the right way, and that in England they do not know how topickle walnuts right.

  To pickle Cucumers.--Take girkin cucumersfresh and dry gather'd, wipe them clean with flannel, and cover them with the bestvinegar cold; let it lie upon them nine or ten days, then pour it off and cast itaway. Just boil up some more best vinegar with some grosly scraped horse-radish,and whole black pepper; let it stand till it is cold, and having first put a littlehorse-radish thin sliced and whole pepper between every layer of the cucumers, pourover them the boiled cold vinegar; stop your jar very close with bladder and leather,and they are done.

  To pickle Walnuts white.--Take your walnutsat the latter end of June, try them with a pin, &c. pare the greenoutside till you come to the white, and put them into cold water as you pare them.When done, fling them into a pot of boiling water, boil them till tender and as quickas you can; then take them out, and put them into cold water. A hundred and halfwill take up a quart of vinegar, one ounce of black pepper whole, half a quarterof an ounce of mace, and twelve cloves. Let them boil together, then fling in thenuts, and give them one boil; when cold, stop them close, and keep for use.

  To pickle Oisters.--Take a quart of oistersand wash them in their own liquor from the gravel, then drain your liquor to themagain, and set them over a fire to boil a quarter of an hour softly, to plump them;then take them out of the liquor and put them into the pot you keep them in, drainthe liquor over again, and put to it four spoonfuls of white-wine vinegar, half aspoonful of whole pepper, a blade or two of mace, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves,with some lemon-peel and some salt. Let all these boil together a little while, pourit to the oisters and the spice with it, and when cold cover close.

  Mrs. Hays's Receit to make a Seed Cake.--Takethree pounds of flour, four ounces of fine sugar, half a pint of cream boiled, twopounds of melted butter, one pint of good ale yeast, eight eggs with two whites.Mix the sugar with the flour, make a hole in the flour, and put all these togetherinto it. Let it stand by the fire half an hour, then mix it together, and strew inone pound of carraway-seed, then put it in a hoop and bake it an hour.

  A notable Oxfordshire Housewife's commonWay of makeing Marrow Puddings.--Take the crumb of a penny loaf, a pound of cleanpick'd wash'd currants, the quantity of two London quarts of new milk boiled, themarrow of a common large bone, a pound of suet, nine yolks of eggs, half a poundof sugar, a nutmeg, and two pennyworth of mace powder'd, a little salt, and halfa dozen large spoonfulls of flour. Mix, and fll your hog's guts but half full, tyingeach yard in four equal parts. After you have tye'd them up (that they are not abovehalf-full) wash them in rather hotter than blood-warm new milk, and directly throwthem into a kettle of boiling water, letting them only simmer therein for eight minutes,for if they continue longer they will burst: When boiled, lay them upon wheat strawon a sieve, and they will dry in seven or eight minutes; then you may broil thembrown, and eat them. They will keep five or six days in warm weather, but at Christmasor in a hard frost thee weeks.

  The Process of making Hogs large Gut white delicatePuddings.--Take a quarter of a peck of the best flour, three pounds of the hog'sleaf cut small, two pounds of the best raisins of the sun, a quarter of an ounceof powder'd ginger, half a nutmeg, a blade of mace, a little stick of cinnamon, andthree whole eggs well beat. Season the whole with salt and with new milk, blend thesetogether almost as stiff as paste for pye-crust, fll your large guts moderately full,tie them at both ends about half a yard long, put them in boiling water, and letthem boil a quarter of an hour upon a slow fire. Lay these upon straw as the other,and keep them so till used; then cut them in slices about half an inch thick, laythem upon the gridiron over a clear fire, broil them brown and eat them.--n. b.These last are praised much, as being exceeding fine, short, and well relished ofthe hog's meat.

  To preserve the Chine, the Tongue, the Spare Ribs,short Ribs, But-Pieces, Hocks, and Head of a Porker or Baconer.--The common waypractised by our Hertfordshire farmers wives to do this is thus: When theysalt down the fleshy pieces of pork for pickling them, I say after this is done,they salt the two but-pieces, the two hocks, the two spare ribs, the chine, the head,and the tongue. If the chine and spare ribs are to be sold, I generally contriveto kill the hog a day or two before the market day, for the opportunity of sellingthem to the London higler, because these pieces fetch a better price thanordinary; in this case they only just sprinkle them with common salt. But if theyare to be kept for spending them in the family, they salt the spare ribs, and hangthem up where the blow-fly cannot come; and the chine, the hocks, the head, and thetongue, they salt and lay in an earthen glazed pot or tub, where they are to remainas they are put in, till they are dressed. In doing all which, they make use of noother than common salt; for as they are to be boil'd or roasted, or baked in a littletime, they think there is no occasion for any other salt.--A second receit is howto salt a chine, spare ribs, and tongue, for drying them in a chimney: To do this,mix about a quarter of an ounce of powder'd salt-petre with a quart of common salt,and with this mixture salt the pieces all over; and when it is rubbed well in, letthem lie under this salting two or three weeks; then wrap each of them in paper,and hang them up near but not too near a fire, and if this is cleverly done, thechine and spare ribs will keep good four, five, or six months; the spare ribs forroasting or baking, and the chine for boiling, provided they are (just before using)soaked in warm water a day and a night; and if they are not fresh enough, you maysoak them in more warm water, and you need not fear their eating good and fresh:And I also add, that by this same method both pork and bacon offald may be preserveda great while sweet and sound, though kill'd and thus managed in summer; partly becausesalt-petre is a most powerful searcher and preventer of taints, and because it forcesand drives in common salt, when they are mix'd and used together. But salting spareribs thus is not agreeable to all, because the salt-petre colours them reddish, andhardens the thin meat of these bony pieces too much.--A farmer's wife, that livesnear Market-Street in Hertfordshire, allows it to be a housewifelyway, to put the short ribs of a porker into pickle, because, as she says, there isless waste of the flesh this way than in salting them; besides which, she thinksthis bony meat eats the pleasanter for being thus pickled.--Another of our countryhousewives manages her offald pieces of pork in this manner: She makes pyes of hershort bony pieces, and the coarse pieces she boils first; so that she salts downonly her fat fleshy pieces of pork clear of all bone, for if the bony pieces of porkwere salted down with the fleshy pieces, they would stink and corrupt the fleshypieces.

  To make a Mince-Pye costly and rich.--To onepound of the meat of a tongue, add two pounds of suet, six pippins, and a green lemon-peelshred small, with an ounce of Jamaica pepper, two pounds of currants, citron,lemon, and orange peels, candy'd and shred small. Mix all these with half a pintof sack, and fll your pye with it. And to make this richer still, add two spoonfulsof lemon juice or verjuice, stoned and sliced dates, with some chop'd raisins.--Anothersays: take an ox heart, or tongue, or meat of a surloin of beef, parboil it, andchop it with two pounds of suet to every pound of lean meat; this mix with a two-pennygrated loaf and eight pippins minced fine. It makes excellent pyes, if spice, sack,and orange-peel are added, with two pounds of currants to every pound of meat. Alsothat this composition may be kept in an earthen pot in a dry place a month or moregood, and to make the pyes eat moist, as soon as they are out of the oven, put ina glass of brandy or white-wine.--Another says, that savoury mince-pyes are bestmade with equal parts of mutton and veal, and other proper ingredients.--Anothersays, that double tripe boiled tender and minced small, with currants, sugar, andother materials, makes good mince-pyes.--Another, to make mince-pyes without flesh,says: Boil a dozen or more of eggs hard, then boil also a pound of rice very soft;mince the eggs, and beat the rice to a pap: Mix these with beef suet shred, currants,raisins, sugar, nutmeg, candy'd orange-peel, and put the whole into a pye with sack,and bake it in an oven moderately heated.

  How a poor Woman makes palatable Mince-Pyes of stinkingMeat.--This is a poor industrious woman that rents a little tenement by me oftwenty shillings a year, who for the sake of her poverty is every week relieved,with many others, by the most noble lord of Gaddesden Manour; who killinga bullock almost every week for his very large family, he has the offald meat dressed,and is so good as to have it given away to the poorest people in the neighbourhood.But it sometimes happens, through the negligence of careless servants, that thischaritable meat is apt to stink in hot weather, for want of its due cleaning, boiling,and laying it in a cool place: However, the poor are very glad of this dole, as itdoes their families considerable service. And to recover such tainted meat, thiswoman, after boiling and cleansing it well, chops and minces it very small, and whenmixed with some pepper, salt, chop'd sage, thyme and onion, she bakes it: This fora savoury pye. At another time she makes a sweet pye of this flesh, by mixing a fewcurrants and plumbs with it. But in either form the taint is so lessened that itis hardly to be perceived.

  How to make Hertfordshire Cakes, Nuts, andPincushions.--These are much used in Hertfordshire, for giving farmersservants a changeable dinner now and then to their satisfaction; for if they aremade as they should be, the men are generally fond of them. To do which, our housewifeputs skim milk and hogs-lard over the fire, and warms them only for mixing. Thenshe takes some flour, sugar, yeast, and an egg or two, with the powder of Jamaicaspice, and makes a paste of these and the milk and fat, as if for pye-crust; andwhen it is work'd and rolled enough, to the thinness of about a quarter of an inch,she cuts it out in two-inch square pieces, and boils them in hogs-lard in a littlekettle, or in a stew-pan or frying-pan. Others roll up this paste in the shape ofwalnuts, and dress them in the same manner the square pieces are.--N. B. Nofat is so good for this as hogs-lard, because the lard hollows the cushions or nuts,and makes them look whiter than any other fat does; though some for want of thismake them with dripping, &c.

  How much the Guts of Chauldron of a Calf in Esteemwith the People in and about the Town of Tring in Hertfordshire, formaking Pyes of them.--It is notoriously known, that Tring market has acquiredno little reputation for the sale of the whitest and best of veal, because the groundof the adjacent country produces a most sweet grass and milk, and white calf's flesh.By which there are great numbers of calves fatted and kill'd in a year for the Londonmarkets, to which the flesh is carried by common higlers. This gives the people inand about Tring an opportunity to buy the guts or chauldrons of fatted calves,to make pyes with them as a very delicious food. And accordingly these guts are seldomput to any other use, especially throughout the summer time. And for those of onecalf the price is generally six-pence, but the butchers are indifferent of sellingthem so, because the fat that is on them might be taken off and sold for near thatmoney without the guts. Now the guts of one calf is enough for one pye but for alarge family pye two have been made use of.

  How the Guts or Chauldron of a Calf is to be clean'dand prepared for making Pyes with them, or to eat them otherwise.--There is noreceit as I know of extant, that directs a person how to clean and prepare the gutsof a calf for making them eatable in pyes or otherwise: The most that any authorsays on this account is, that the guts must be first parboil'd before they are madeinto a pye, without taking notice what is to be done before. Wherefore I have thoughtit necessary to tell my reader, that our country housewife's way is, to slit theguts along with a penknife that has a pea stuck at the end of it, to keep the knife'spoint from entering the gut, and making it the better slide through it. When gutsare thus slit and opened, they must be well wash'd till cleansed of their filth;then they must be laid in a tub, and salt strewed over them, for their being wellrubbed with it, to bring off all manner of slime and foulness: This being neatlydone, the guts are to be rinsed in spring water twice a day for two days together.

  How the Guts or Chauldron of a Calf is to be madeinto a Pye.--The guts being thoroughly cleaned, as before directed, are to beboiled a little while, or what may be called parboil'd; and when cold, if there beany kernels in them, they must be picked out, then chopt into small bits, which areto be season'd with pepper and salt and nutmeg, and mixed with minced sweet herbsand a piece of fresh butter. These (put into pyecrust) are to be closed up with someverjuice, and when baked, a caudle must be prepared and put into the pye, made withnutmeg, vinegar, butter, sugar, the yolks of two new laid eggs, a spoonful of sack;and if you think fit the juice of a Seville orange.

  A Second Receit to make a Chauldron Pye, or to makea delicious sweet Chauldron Pye.--The guts should be chop'd very small, and mixedwith currants, sugar, and some butter; or with plumbs and no currants, with the additionof some of the ingredients of the other receit.

  A third Receit to make a Chauldron Pye.--Halfboil a calf's chauldron, when cold mince it as small as grated bread, with half apound of suet or better, and as much marrow. Season it with mace, nutmeg, and clovesbeaten small; then wring out the juice of half a lemon, and add some of its rindminced small. This done, mix them all together; and when you have laid a piece ofpuff-paste at the bottom of a dish, put your mixture on it, cover all with anotherleaf of paste, and bake it. When baked, open the pye, and squeeze in the juice ofthree Seville oranges.

  To make a Pudding of a Calf's Chauldron.--Takethe parboil'd guts, and mince them as small as possible, with half a pound of beefsuet. Season it with a little onion, parsley, thyme, and the rind of a lemon shredvery small, with beaten nutmeg, cloves, and mace, all mixed together, with the yolksof five eggs and a little cream; then take sheeps guts thoroughly cleansed and cured,fll them with this meat in the shape of hogs puddings, and boil them after the samemanner.

  To fry a Calf's Chauldron.--After the calf'sguts are cleansed and cured, parboil them, and when cold cut it into little bitsas big as walnuts. Season it with powder'd cloves, nutmeg, mace, an onion, parsley,and a little pepper. Then put this mixture into a frying-pan, with a ladle full ofstrong broth and a little piece of butter, and fry it. When fry'd enough, put overit a layer made with mutton gravey, the juice of a lemon and orange, the yolks ofthree or four eggs, and some grated nutmeg. Toss this in the pan two or three times,then dish and serve it up.