Mother's Cook Book: Containing Recipes for Every Day in the Week, Including ..

To seven pounds plums, four pounds sugar, two ounces stick cinnamon, two ounces cloves, one quart vinegar, add a little mace; put in the jar first a layer of plums, then a layer of spices alternately; scald the vinegar and sugar together, pour it over the plums; repeat three times for plums (only once for out apples and pears), the fourth time scald all together, put them into glass jars and they are ready for use. SPICED PLUMS. Make a syrup, allowing one pound of sugar to one of plums, and to every three pounds of sugar a scant pint of vinegar. Allow one ounce each of ground cinnamon, cloves, mace, and allspice to a peck of plums. Prick the plums. Add the spices to the syrup, and pour, boiling, over the plums. Let these stand three days; then skim them out, and boil down the syrup until it is quite thick, and pour hot over the plums in the jar in which they are to be kept. Cover closely. PEACHES, PEARS, AND SWEET APPLES. For six pounds of fruit use three of sugar, about five dozen cloves, and a pint of vinegar. Into each apple, pear, or peach, stick two cloves. Have the syrup hot, and cook until tender. TOMATO CATSUP. Take one gallon of skinned tomatoes, four tablespoonfuls of salt, four ditto of whole black pepper, half a spoonful of allspice, eight pods of red pepper, and three spoonfuls of mustard, boil them together for one hour, then strain it through a sieve or coarse cloth, and when cold, bottle for use; have the best velvet corks. Mother's Cook Book. WALNUT CATSUP. Bruise to a mass one hundred and twenty green walnuts, gathered when a pin could pierce one; pat to it three-quarters of a pound of salt and a quart of good vinegar; stir them every day for" a fortnight, then strain and squeeze the liquor from them through a cloth, and set it aside, put to the husks half a pint of vinegar, and let it stand all night, then strain and squeeze them as before; put the liquor from them to that which was put aside, add to it one ounce and a quarter of whole pepper, forty cloves, half an ounce of nutmeg sliced, and half an ounce of ginger, and boil it for half an hour closely covered, then strain it; when cold, bottle it for use. Secure the bottles with new corks, and dip them in melted rosin. MUSHROOM CATSUP. To each peck of mushrooms one-half pound of salt; to each quart of mushroom liquor one-quarter ounce of Cayenne, one-half ounce of allspice, one-half ounce of ginger, two blades of pounded mace. Choose full-grown mushroom-naps, and take care they are perfectly fresh-gathered when the weather is tolerably dry; for, if they are picked during very heavy rain the catsup from which they are made is liable to get musty, and will not keep long. Put a layer of them in a deep pan, sprinkle salt over them, and then another layer of mushrooms, and so on alternately. Let them remain for a few hours, then break them up with the hand; put them in a nice cool place for three days, occasionally stirring and mashing them well to extract from them as much juice as possible. Now measure the quantity of liquor without straining, and to each quart allow the above proportion of spices, etc. Put all into a stone jar, cover it up very closely, put it in a saucepan of boiling water, set it over the fire, and let it boil for three hours. 152 Mother's Cook Book.