Virginia Cookery-book

Is better than blackberry in all cases where a light color is desirable ; and, strange as it may seem, we have seen a good and bright wine made by the following directions : One quart of currant-juice, three quarts of water, three pounds of brown sugar, all to be put together in a cask. Let it remain with the bung out (open) for six weeks ; then stop up. Good Cooking Wine. (Simple and Perfect.) One quart of grape-juice (Fox grapes, Catawba, Concord, or the small wild grape, gathered after frost, will answer), three quarts of water, two and a half pounds of common brown sugar. Let the juice of the grapes be strained clear ; mix it with the water and sugar, and put directly into an open barrel or cask (for the vessel should be full), and let it stand so in a cellar for nine days ; then cork up the cask tight ; fasten the bung, and set aside till spring, when it may be bottled, and is ready for use. CHAPTER XXIV. THE DAIRY. To Make Butter.— Brine for Keeping Butter.— To Cure Butter. — Mrs. Colston's Recipe for Putting up Butter to Keep. — Cottage Cheese. — Bonny - clabber. — Slip. — Curds and Cream, No. 1.— Curds and Cream, No. 2. — Cheese. — Cream-cheese, No. 1. — Creamcheese, No. 2.— To Make Slip-coat Cheese. To Make Butter. We cool the milk as soon as possible after it is strained; a small portion of ice around the pans cools it very soon. The milk is allowed to stand about twenty-four hours before it is skimmed ; and if properly cooled when first milked it will not thicken or sour in that time, in scarcely any weather, in a well-ventilated dairy. We use care in skimming to take only the cream ; the less milk with the cream the better. The cream is kept in good stone jars, and churned as soon as it begins to sour. We use the barrel-chum and pan, fifty to sixty revolutions per minute, with a steady, even stroke. It takes from thirty-five to forty-five minutes to make the butter come. As soon as granules begin to form, if they are soft or of a whitish, creamy appearance (as they will be if the cream is too warm), we cool down with less, until they acquire a proper consistency. As soon as the churning is finished we draw off the buttermilk, and press the whey all out of the butter with the paddle ; it is then salted, at the rate of one ounce to one pound of butter, which is well worked in the butter ; it is then set aside for six or eight hours, for the salt to dissolve and the batter to cool, when it is thor- oughly worked and pressed to get the whey all out of it, and packed down at once in stone jars, using the paddle and packer all the time, and never touching it with the hand. An ounce of salt is none too much, as a large portion of it is carried off with the whey in the last working of the butter. When the jar is filled, a thick coat of salt is put over the top of it; then a piece of paper, greased by dipping it in a cup of melted butter ; another layer of salt is placed over this, and then another fold of paper, and all secured by tying a thick cotton cloth over the mouth of the jar. Butter managed in this way will keep from May until the next spring perfectly sweet. The giver of the above recipe, Dr. J. A. Reid, took the first premium for butter at a Virginia State Fair, and his instructions may be relied upon in every particular. Brine fob Keeping Butteb. Make a brine strong enough to bear an egg; then put in two handfuls of salt to each gallon of water; add half a pound of white sugar and two teaspoonfuls of saltpetre; boil well, and skim until perfectly clear ; then strain six or eight times. Always keep a bag of salt in the brine with the butter ; let the butter be weighted down, the rolls tied separately in cotton cloths, and it will preserve its sweet, fresh taste for a year or two. To Cube Butteb.