Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Salsify, Stewed. — Scrape and wash the roots, and cut them into round slices. Boil them in as much water as will barely cover them, and when they are tender lift them out with a slice, and pour away all but a quarter of a pint of the liquor. Thicken this with flour and butter, stir half a cupful of cream into it, and season with pepper and salt. Let it simmer gently for a few minutes. Put the salsify into a hot dish, pour the sauce over it, and serve. Time, one hour. Salsifi.es with Veloute.— Prepare as in the preceding recipe. Only take note that all sauces sent up with vegetables should be refined and thickened with fresh butter. Never forget to add salt and a little cayenne. Salt Butter, Choosing.— When you choose salt butter, taste a piece of the outside next the tub: if that is good and free from rancidness, you may be certain the middle is ; but the centre is often excellent when the sides are half spoilt ; and those who sell it, knowing this, often give you to taste out of the middle. — Dr. Kitchiner. Salt Butter made Fresh. — Put a pound of salt butter in a wooden bowl kept very clean for the purpose, only with a quart of water, and work it well, either with your hand or a wooden spoon, for twenty minutes ; then pour away the water, and wash it well in seven or eight different waters. Add a very little fine salt, and make it into pats. Salt Butter, To Make.— The common method of preserving butter is by salting it more or less. Salt is thoroughly worked into the butter, in the proportion of one or two ounces to the pound, according as the butter is required to be kept for a shorter or longer time. Dr. Anderson, in his "Recreations," recommends another method of curing butter, by which, he says, with ordinary care, it may be kept for years in this climate, or carried to the East Indies, if packed so as not to melt. " Mix two parts of the best salt, one of sugar, and one of saltpetre, and heat them into a fine powder : one ounce of this preparation is sufficient for a pound of butter. This should be thoroughly mixed with the butter as soon as it is separated from the whey, and it should then be put into a clean cask. It should be packed very well down, to exclude the air thoroughly ; the top should be covered with a sprinkling of salt, and melted butter poured over it to fill up every crevice before the cover is fixed down. Butter cured in this manner does not taste well till it has stood at least a fortnight after being salted ; but after that time it has a rich marrowy taste that no other butter ever acquires, and tastes so little salt that one would imagine it would not keep." Dr. Anderson had seen it perfectly sound when two years old in this climate. Salt, Common, Wholesomeness of.