The "Queen" cookery books: Pickles and Preserves

Though French beaus (like broad, or Windsor beans) can be perfectly bottled by the previous directions, the commonest method of preserving these most useful vegetables is this: Gather the French beans whilst young, and on a fine day ; put a fairly thick layer of salt at the bottom of a large, unglazed earthenware jar, and cover with a layer of beans, then more salt, and repeat these two layers till the jar is full, finishing with the salt. Cover with a clean cloth, lay a board on that, and lastly, a pretty heavy weight on that, to ensure its being airtight. Be careful when taking out beans that the jar is carefully recovered, or they will not keep. To use them, wash them well when taken out, and then let them steep in soft water from twelve to twenty-four hours, changing the water pretty constantly. When boiled, do not salt them, but put a piece of butter with them, and season with lemon juice and white pepper. Again, it is not at all difficult to dry vegetables, and desiccated vegetables always form part of the winter stores abroad. For these, peel and shred fairly fine, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and such like, and boil them for five minutes in a wicker basket ; (if you are drying cauliflowers, endive, parsley, spinach, &c., pick them over, and wash them well, then boil for five minutes) ; then rinse them all in cold water (iced if possible), drain them well and dry carefully on a clean cloth. When dry, spread the vegetables in thin layers on canvas frames, so that they do not stick together in lumps, and leave these frames in the oven for the night, in an even, c 2 moderate heat, repeating this process till the vegetables are quite dry and crisp. Then store them in glass bottles covered down till air-tight. Cabbages can also be kept in this way, but must be very carefully cleansed and steeped, and then parboiled in fresh water. All bottled vegetables should be carefully strained from the water in which they were preserved, and then thoroughly rinsed in fresh boiling water, and again well drained ; this helps to soften them before cooking, and entirely prevents any chance of a bitter taste sometimes given by the preserving water ; a taste frequently noticeable in carelessly cooked preserved vegetables. The drying frames can easily be made at home, as they only consist of four thin laths nailed together to fit the oven, and then covered with coarse canvas or sacking strained over them. Mushrooms, though susceptible of exactly the same treatment as other vegetables, are preserved generally somewhat differently from other vegetables, therefore, various methods are here given. Old-fashioned country housewives preserve them thus : Choose large though still button mushrooms, and lay them on a sieve stalks uppermost, and sprinkle well with fine salt to get out the water. When well drained, put them in a deep jar, and set them for an hour in a cool oven, after which, take them up lightly, and lav them upon a dish to cool. Meantime, boil the liquor which will have receded from them, with a blade of mace, until reduced to half ; now put the mushrooms in a clean jar, and pour this reduced liquor (when cold) over them, cover with melted suet, and cover down very carefully. Or :