Take some slices of a rump (or any other tender piece) of beef, and beat them with a paste pin, season them with nutmeg, pepper and salt, and rub them over with the yolk of an egg; make a little forc'd-meat of veal, beef-suet, a few bread crumbs, sweet-herbs, a little shred mace, pepper, salt, and two eggs, mixed all together; take two or three slices of the beef, according as they are in bigness, and a lump of forc'd-meat the size of an egg; lay your beef round it, and roll it in part of a kell of veal, put it into an earthen dish, with a little water, a glass of claret, and a little onion shred small; lay upon them a little butter, and bake them in an oven about an hour; when they come out take off the fat, and thicken the gravy with a little butter and flour; six of them is enough for a side dish. Garnish the dish with horseradish and pickles. You may make olives of veal the same way.
Take a leg and shin of beef to ten gallons of water, boil it very tender, and when the broth is strong, strain it out, wipe the pot, and put in the broth again; slice six penny-loaves thin, cutting off the top and bottom; put some of the liquor to it, cover it up, and let it stand a quarter of an hour, and then put it in your pot, let it boil a quarter of an hour, then put in five pounds of currants, let them boil a little, and put in five pounds of raisins, and two pounds of prunes, and let them boil till they swell; then put in three quarters of an ounce of mace, half an ounce of cloves, two nutmegs, all of them beat fine, and mix it with a little liquor cold, and put them in a very little while, and take off the pot, and put in three pounds of sugar, a little salt, a quart of sack, and a quart of claret, the juice of two or three lemons; you may thicken with sagoe instead of bread, if you please; pour them into earthen pans, and keep them for use.
To a 14 or 16 pound round of beef, put one ounce salt-petre, 48 hours after stuff it with the following: one and half pound beef, one pound salt pork, two pound grated bread, chop all fine and rub in half pound butter, salt, pepper and cayenne, summer savory, thyme; lay it on scewers in a large pot, over 3 pints hot water (which it must occasionally be supplied with,) the steam of which in 4 or 5 hours will render the round tender if over a moderate fire; when tender, take away the gravy and thicken with flour and butter, and boil, brown the round with butter and flour, adding ketchup and wine to your taste.
Take three jills of milk, when boiled, take a penny loaf sliced thin, cut off the out crust, put on the boiling milk, let it stand close covered till it be cold, and beat it very well till all the lumps be broke; take five eggs beat very well, grate in a little nutmeg, shred some lemon-peel, and a quarter of a pound of butter or beef-suet, with as much sugar as will sweeten it; and currans as many as you please; let them be well cleaned; so put them into your dish, and bake or boil it.
Take a pound and a half of veal, parboil it, and when 'tis cold chop it very small, with two pound of beef-suet, and some candied orange-peel; some sweet-herbs, as thyme, sweet-marjoram, and an handful of spinage; mince the herbs small before you put them to the other; so chop all together, and a pippin or two; then add a handful or two of grated bread, a pound and a half of currants, washed and dried; some cloves, mace, nutmeg, a little salt, sugar and sack, and put to all these as many yolks of raw eggs, and whites of two, as will make it a moist forc'd-meat; work it with your hands into a body, and make it into balls as big as a turkey's egg; then having your coffin made put in your balls. Take the marrow out of three or four bones as whole as you can: let your marrow lie a little in water, to take out the blood and splinters; then dry it, and dip it in yolk of eggs; season it with a little salt, nutmeg grated, and grated bread; lay it on and between your forc'd-meat balls, and over that sliced citron, candied orange and lemon, eryngo-roots, preserved barberries; then lay on sliced lemon, and thin slices of butter over all; then lid your pye, and bake it; and when 'tis drawn, have in readiness a caudle made of white-wine and sugar, and thicken'd with butter and eggs, and pour it hot into your pye.
Put two quarts of dried white beans to soak the night before you make the soup, which should be put on as early in the day as possible. Take two pounds of the lean of fresh beef--the coarse pieces will do. Cut them up and put them into your soup-pot with the bones belonging to them (which should be broken in pieces), and a pound of lean bacon, cut very small. If you have the remains of a piece of beef that has been roasted the day before, and so much underdone that the juices remain in it, you may put it into the pot and its bones along with it. Season the meat with pepper only, and pour on it six quarts of water. As soon as it boils, take off the scum, and put in the beans (having first drained them) and a head of celery cut small, or a tablespoonful of pounded celery seed. Boil it slowly till the meat is done to shreds, and the beans all dissolved. Then strain it through a colander into the tureen, and put into it small squares of toasted bread with the crust cut off.
Scald your milk pans every day after washing them; and let them set till the water gets cold. Then wipe them with a clean cloth. Fill them all with cold water half an hour before milking time, and do not pour it out till the moment before you are ready to use the pans. Unless all the utensils are kept perfectly sweet and nice, the cream and butter will never be good. Empty milk-pans should stand all day in the sun. When you have strained the milk into the pans, (which should be broad and shallow,) place them in the spring-house, setting them down in the water. After the milk has stood twenty-four hours, skim off the cream, and deposits it in a large deep earthen jar, commonly called a crock, which must be kept closely covered, and stirred up with a stick at least twice a day, and whenever you add fresh cream to it. This stirring is to prevent the butter from being injured by the skin that will gather over the top of the cream. You should churn at least twice a week, for if the cream is allowed to stand too long, the butter will inevitably have a odd taste. Add to the cream the strippings of the milk. Butter of only two or three days gathering is the best. With four or five good cows, you may easily manage to have a churning every three days. If your dairy is on a large scale, churn every two days. Have your churn very clean, and rinse and cool it with cold water. A barrel churn is best; though a small upright one, worked by a staff or dash, will do very well where there are but one or two cows. Strain the cream from the crock into the churn, and put on the lid. Move the handle slowly in warm weather, as churning too fast will make the butter soft. When you find that the handle moves heavily and with great difficulty, the butter has come; that is, it has separated from the thin fluid and gathered into a lump, and it then is not necessary to churn any longer. Take it out with a wooden ladle, and put it into a small tub or pail. Squeeze and press it hard with the ladle, to get out all that remains of the milk. Add a little salt, and then squeeze and work It for a long time. If any of the milk is allowed to remain in, it will speedily turn sour and spoil the butter. Set it away in a cool place for three hours, and then work it over again. [Footnote: A marble slab or table will be found of great advantage in working and making up butter.] Wash it in cold water; weigh it; make it up into separate pounds, smoothing, and shaping it; and clap each pound on your wooden butter print, dipping the print every time in cold water. Spread a clean linen cloth on a bench in the spring-house; place the butter on it, and let it set till it becomes perfectly hard. Then wrap each pound in a separate piece of linen that has been dipped in cold water. Pour the buttermilk into a clean crock, and place it in the spring-house, with a saucer to dip it out with. Keep the pot covered. The buttermilk will be excellent the first day; but afterwards it will become too thick and sour. Winter buttermilk is never very palatable. Before you put away the churn, wash and scald it well; and the day that you use it again, keep it for an hour or more filled with cold water. In cold weather, churning is a much more tedious process than in summer, as the butter will be longer coming. It is best then to have the churn in a warm room, or near the fire. If you wish to prepare the butter for keeping a long time, take it after it has been thoroughly well made, and pack it down tightly into a large jar. You need not in working it, add more salt than if the butter was to be eaten immediately. But preserve it by making a brine of fine salt, dissolved in water. The brine must be strong enough to bear up an egg on the surface without sinking. Strain the brine into the jar, so as to be about two inches above the butter. Keep the jar closely covered, and set it in a cool place. When you want any of the butter for use, take it off evenly from the top; so that the brine may continue to cover it at a regular depth. This receipt for making butter is according to the method in use at the best farm-houses in Pennsylvania, and if exactly followed will be found very good. The badness of butter is generally owing to carelessness or mismanagement; to keeping the cream too long without churning; to want of cleanliness in the utensils; to not taking the trouble to work it sufficiently; or to the practice of salting it so profusely as to render it unpleasant to the taste, and unfit for cakes or pastry. All these causes of bad butter are inexcusable, and can easily be avoided. Unless the cows have been allowed to feed where there are bitter weeds or garlic, the milk cannot naturally have any disagreeable taste, and therefore the fault of the butter must be the fault of the maker. Of course, the cream is much richer where the pasture is fine and luxuriant; and in winter, when the cows have only dry food, the butter must be consequently whiter and more insipid than in the grazing season. Still, if properly made, even winter butter cannot taste badly. Many economical housekeepers always buy for cooking, butter of inferior quality. This is a foolish practice; as when it is bad, the taste will predominate through all attempts to disguise it, and render every thing unpalatable with which it is combined. As the use of butter is designed to improve and not to spoil the flavour of cookery, it is better to omit it altogether, and to substitute something else, unless you can procure that which is good. Lard, suet, beef-drippings, and sweet oil, may be used in the preparation of various dishes; and to eat with bread or warm cakes, honey, molasses, or stewed fruit, &c, are far superior to bad butter.
Take a rump of beef, lard it with bacon and spices, betwixt the larding, stuff it with forced meat, made of a pound of veal, three quarters of a pound of beef-suet, a quarter of a pound of fat bacon boiled and shred well by itself, a good quantity of parsley, winter savoury, thyme, sweet-marjoram, and an onion, mix all this together, season it with mace cloves, cinnamon, salt, Jamaica and black pepper, and some grated bread, work the forc'd-meat up with three whites and two yolks of eggs, then stuff it, and lay some rough suet in a stew pan with your beef upon it, let it fry till it be brown then put in some water, a bunch of sweet herbs, a large onion stuffed with cloves, sliced turnips, carrots cut as large as the yolk of an egg, some whole pepper and salt, half a pint of claret, cover it close, and let it stew six or seven hours over a gentle fire, turning it very often.
Take a houghil of beef, cut it in pieces, with part of a neck of mutton, and a pound of French barley; put them all into your pot, with six quarts of water; let it boil 'till the barley be soft, then put in a fowl; as soon as 'tis enough put in a handful of red beet leaves or brocoli, a handful of the blades of onions, a handful of spinage, washed and shred very small; only let them have a little boil, else it will spoil the greenness. Serve it up with the fowl in a dish, garnish'd with raspings of bread.
Take two or three French-Rowles, or white penny bread, cut them in slices, and put to the bread as much Cream as wil cover it, put it on the fire till your Cream and bread be very warm, then take a ladle or spoon and beat it very well together, put to this twelve Eggs, but not above foure whites, put in Beef Suet, or Marrow, according to your discretion, put a pretty quantity of Currans and Raisins, season the Pudding with Nutmeg, Mace, Salt, and Sugar, but very little flower for it will make it sad and heavy; make a piece of puff past as much as will cover your dish, so cut it very handsomely what fashion you please; Butter the bottome of your Dish, put the pudding into the Dish, set it in a quick Oven, not too hot as to burne it, let it bake till you think it be enough, scrape on Sugar and serve it up.
