Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Fruit Bouillon. — Stew a quart of cherries in three quarts of water until they are tender. Press through a fine sieve, and add to the liquor half a cup of granulated sugar, and return to the fire. Wet a small table-spoonful of corn-starch with cold water, and add it to the boiling bouillon. Cook until smooth and rather thick. Remove from the fire, and, when cool. add a half-pint of claret to the bouillon. Serve as punch, in glasses of crushed ice. Ginger-pop. — Two gallons of boiling water, 2 lbs. of sugar, 2 ozs. of cream tartar, 2 oz. of root ginger or three table - spoonfuls of Brown’s Jamaica ginger, one lemon (cut). Let ingredients stand until milkwarm, then put into a stone jar. Add large slice of stale bread and two cakes of compressed yeast. Allow to remain overnight in a warm place. Strain and bottle, filling bottles only two -thirds full, and fasten corks. Bottles with patent corks are best. In from three to four days the gingerpop will be ready for use. Gooseberry Wine. — Put 3 lbs. of loaf-sugar into one gallon of water ; boil and skim it. When it is nearly cold, put in six quarts of ripe gooseberries that have been well mashed. Let it stand two days, stirring it frequently. Steep half an ounce of isinglass in one pint of brandy for two days ; then beat it with the whites of four eggs until they froth, and add to the wine ; stir up and strain through a flannel bag into a cask or jug ; fasten it so as to exclude the air ; let it stand six months, and bottle tightly, adding two or three raisins to each bottle. Grape Wine. — The small wild grape known to boys as the ** bird grape ” never attains its full sweetness until after the fall of frost, and makes an excellent wine for culinary purposes. Mash the grapes in a large bowl or tub with a mallet, and keep them in a warm place until there is some sign of fermentation setting in ; then strain the juice by dripping through a flannel bag. To three quarts of juice add one quart of water and 3 lbs. of light-brown sugar. If you put it away in a demijohn, select a warm, dry closet, and tie up the mouth closely with a piece of thin muslin. Do not cork up tight until the whole process is complete. It Lemon Syrup Punch, Pineapple will be all the better if fermentation ensues speedily ; but if the place of deposit is not warm enough, as soon as the first warm days of spring come it will go on to ferment, and not be injured by the delay. Lemon Syrup. — Three-quarters of a quart of lemon juice and one-quarter of water, 4 lbs. of the best white sugar to every quart of the mixture ; boil fifteen or twenty minutes. The juice must be strained through flannel before boiling ; for if any of the pulp or rind should be corked with it the syrup will be bitter.