Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Citron, Spiced. — The common citron is best for this. To every 4 lbs. of fruit, weighed after removing the rind and softest part, allow 2 lbs. of best white sugar; of cloves and mace, each oz. ; five gills of vinegar. Boil well together the vinegar, sugar, and spices, the latter in a thin muslin bag ; pour hot on the fruit, and let it stand a day or two. Then take out the citron, boil it in clear water until it is tender; that is, if it is the preserving kind, but not if it is tablecitron. Pour the vinegar and spices, boiling hot, on again. The second morning repeat, and then seal carefully. Cucumbers. — Those of a medium size are best, the large being tough and the small ones insipid. About fifty of the right size will fill a two-gallon jar. Wash fifty cucumbers and lay them in the jar, covering them with two or three green leaves of Savoy cabbage (which help to give the pickles a fine color). Make a brine of alum salt strong enough to bear an egg, skim it carefully, and when it boils pour it over the cucumbers. This process is to be performed on each of three successive mornings, when the pickles will have been properly salted. To take the salt out of them you next scald them in good hard cider or diluted vinegar, and lay them on a waiter to drain. Now put into your kettle one and a half gallons of vinegar, together with a lump of alum the size of a nutmeg, the slices of Cucumbers Fig Pickles a medium-sized root of horseradish, and I oz. each of celery seed, wholegrain black pepper and white mustardseed, and a few sprigs of mace, and keep this on the stove till it boils. Lay your cucumbers neatly back in the jar, adding to them three white onions well stuck with cloves, and two small green peppers; cover all with the cabbage leaves, pour the spiced vinegar over them while still hot, and when the jar is cool tie it up neatly with stout paper and twine and put in the cellar or a cool closet. The pickles should be examined occasionally, and if they show a disposition to rise too high for the vinegar, weight them down with an inverted saucer or plate. Cucumbers in Mustard Pickle. — Prepare cucumbers as usual. Put on to boil three quarts of vinegar ; tie in a bag five cents’ worth of turmeric, Y\ oz. each of cloves and allspice; put into the vinegar also a few onions ; let all boil thirty minutes ; strain the vinegar, and put back on the stove. Mix I lb. of mustard, one teacupful of flour, and one quart of vinegar well together, free of lumps. When the vinegar boils, add the mixture of vinegar, mustard, and flour; let it bubble once. Take off the stove and put the pickles into it, letting them remain in the kettle until cold ; then bottle. Cucumber Pickles, Oil. — This very delicious compound is prepared as follows : Pare and slice four dozen cucumbers as if for serving on table, put them into brine strong enough to bear an egg, and let them stand twenty-four hours. Slice a dozen or fourteen onions ; cover with brine for two days. Shake off the brine thoroughly, and arrange in a jar alternate layers of cucumbers and onions, adding to each layer one table-spoonful of mustard-seed and a salt-spoonful of celery seed. Pour olive oil and cider vinegar (if obtainable) over each layer. The longer this pickle stands the better. If made in July it should not be used till December. 16 5