Cassell's dictionary of cookery

pickling — cauliflowers, white cabbages, French beans, capsicums, gherkins, large and small onions, cucumbers, radish pods, green tomatoes, and nasturtiums. Take equal quantities of each kind. Prepare them by slicing the large sorts, shredding the cabbage, and pulling the cauliflower into small pieces. Put them into a large pan with boiling brine sufficiently strong to bear an egg. Let them simmer for one minute, then drain the liquid from them, spread them out on large dishes, and place them in the sun until they are perfectly dry. Prepare as much pickle as will entirely cover the vegetables, in the following proportions : — Boil two quarts of good vinegar with two ounces | of bruised ginger, one ounce of whole white pepper, one ounce of allspice, two ounces of turmeric or curry-powder, and two ounces of I shallots. Boil these for five minutes, then mix j two ounces of best Durham mustard smoothly j with a little boiling vinegar, and stir it into the rest of the vinegar, which must not boil after the mustard is added. Let the first heat go off, then pour the vinegar over the vegetables, and when they are quite cold store them in jars, and intermix the spices amongst them. Be careful that the vegetables are covered with the vinegar, and cover the jar with bladder to excbide the air. This pickle must be examined at intervals, and as the vegetables absorb the vinegar, fresh cold vinegar must be added and well stirred in. Additions of various vegetables may be made as they come into season; but it should be remembered that they must be scalded in brine and dried, then scalded in hot vinegar., and allowed to grow cold, before they are put to the rest of the pickle, or they will not keep. Pickled Meats and Fish.— Recipes for the following pickled meats and fish will be found under their respective headings : — Bacon Cheeks Beef, Pickle for Beef, Round of Bullocks' Tongues Cockles Eggs Haddock Ham Ham, Pickle for Hamburgh Herrings Herrings (French Method) Irish Salmon Mackerel Mussels Ox Tongue Oysters Pork Salmon Pickle. — When meat is to be salted, it should either be put into the pickle while it is warm after killing, or be allowed to hang a day or two in summer, and five or six days in winter, to become tender. Before it is put into the brine the kernels and pipes should be removed, and the meat wiped well with a dry cloth. It is an excellent plan to rub a little dried and warmed salt into the meat, and leave it until the next day, then drain it well from the slime and blood which will have flowed from it, and put it into the brine, which ought to covei it entirely. The meat should be turned and rubbed every day. Pickle for meat may be used again and again if it is boiled and skimmed occasionally, a little fresh salt being added to it. The tub which contains it should be kept covered, either with a lid or a thick cloth, and a cool place should be chosen for it to stand in. IMeat is more tender when cured with bay salt than with common salt : the fonner is the more expensive of the two. Sugar makes, the meat mellow ; saltpetre colours it, but tends to make it hard, dry, and indigestible. Two or three recipes for pickle are here given, all of which will be found excellent. They are suitable for beef, hams, and tongues. Pickle for Beef, Pork, and Tongues.