PICKLES.

Preliminary Observations.

PICKLES well chewed, and eaten in moderation, are not bad, as vehicles for taking a certain portion of vinegar, which is useful on many occasions, as resisting putrefaction, assisting digestion, and removing obstructions, and thus counteracting gross foods. But an immoderate use of vinegar is very injurious to all constitutions, and there are some that cannot bear it at all.

When spices

The simplest kinds of pickles are the safest. are too profusely used in them, or too many kinds mixed together, they tend to counteract the benefits of the vinegar.

The pickle made to preserve cucumbers, &c. is generally so strongly impregnated with garlic, mustard, and spice, &c. that the original flavour of the vegetables is quite overpowered; and if the eater shuts his eyes, his lingual nerves will be puzzled to inform him whether he is munching an onion or a cucumber, &c. and nothing can be more absurd than to pickle plums, peaches, apricots, currants, grapes, &c.

The strongest vinegar must be used for pickling:—it must not be boiled, or the strength of the vinegar and spices will be evaporated. By parboiling the pickles in brine, they will be ready in half the time they are when done in the usual manner,—of soaking them in cold salt and water for s>x or eight days. When taken out of the hot brine, let them get cold, and quite dry, before you put them into the pickle. To assist the preservation of pickles, a portion of salt is added; and for the same purpose, and to give flavour, long pepper, black рерper, white pepper, allspice, ginger, cloves, mace, garlic, mustard, horseradish, shalots, and capsicum.

The following is the best method of preparing the pickle, and requires less care than any other way. -Bruise in a mortar three or four ounces of the above ingredients; put them into a stone jar with a quart of the strongest vinegar; stop the jar closely with a bung, cover that with a bladder soaked with

pickle, set it on a trivet by the side of the fire for three days, well shaking it up at least three times in the day. By pounding the spice, half the quantity is enough; and the jar being well closed, and the infusion being made with a mild heat, there is no loss by evaporation.

To enable the articles pickled to more easily and speedily imbibe the flavour of the pickle they are immersed in, previously to pouring it on them run a larding-piu through them in several places.

Pickles should be kept in a dry place, in unglazed earthenware, or glass jars. The latter are preferable, as you can, without opening them, observe whether they want filling up: they must be carefully stopped with well fitting bungs, and tied over as closely as possible with a bladder wetted with the pickle.

Jars should not be more than three parts filled with the articles pickled, which should be covered with liquor at least two inches above their surface; for the liquor wastes, and all of the articles pickled, that are not covered, are soou spoiled. A wooden spoon, full of holes, should be tied round each jar, to take them out with.

If you wish to have gherkins, &c. very green, this may be easily accomplished by keeping them in vinegar, sufficiently hot, till they become so. If you wish cauliflowers, onions, &c. to be white, use distilled vinegar for them.

To entirely prevent ihe mischief arising from the action of the acid upon the metallic utensils usually employed to prepare pickles, the whole of the process is directed to be performed in unglazed stone jars.

Walnuts.

Scald slightly, to facilitate rubbing off the first skin, a hundred of fine large French walnuts, about the beginning of July, before they have a hard shell, which is easily ascertained by the common method of trying them with a pin. Put them in a strong cold brine, shift them into new the third and sixth days, and take them out and dry them on the ninth or tenth. Then take an ounce each of long pepper, black pepper, ginger, and allspice; a quarter of an ounce of cloves; a few blades of mace: and a table-spoonful of mustard seed: and having bruised the whole together, put into a glass or unglazed stone

jar, a layer of walnuts, strew them well over with the mixture, and proceed in the same manner with the rest, till all are covered. Then, boiling three quarts of white wine vinegar, with some sliced horseradish and ginger, pour it hot over the walnuts, and cover them up close. Repeat the boiling of the vinegar, and pouring it hot over, three or four days, always keeping the pickle closely covered; and adding, at the last boiling, a few cloves of garlic, or some shalots, let them stand at least four or five months, when they will be excellent. This liquor, too, proves an admirable walnut catsup for fish, &c.

The best method of pickling the smallest young cucumbers, commonly called gherkin, differs little from that of preparing codlin mangoes, &c. They should, after lying for two or three days in a strong brine, be wiped dry, and put into stone jars. Then, boiling, for ten minutes, a sufficient quantity of good common vinegar to cover them, with plenty of ginger, black pepper, and allspice; a few cloves; a little mace; some sliced horseradish, peeled onions, and shalots, and a small quantity of garlic; pour the liquor hot over the gherkins, cover each jar with vine or cabbage leaves and a plate, and set them near the fire, or in some other warm situation; next day drain the vinegar from them, boil it, and again pour it hot over them and fresh vine leaves; and, if not then sufficiently green, repeat the same process a third time. When quite cold, tie them down close, covered with bladder and leather.

Cucumbers and Onions in S/ices.

Slice large peeled onions, and uupared Cucumbers, and well sprinkle them over with salt on the following day, drain off the brine gradually for some hours, and put them in a stone jar. In the mean time boil sliced horse-radish, whitest ginger, whole white pepper, and allspice, with a little mace, in good common vinegar; pour it hot over them, and keep them covered in a warm situation. The slices of cucumbers should be tolerably thick, those of the onions somewhat thinner. The vinegar must be reboiled daily, two or three times, and again poured hot over; after which, the jar is to be closed in the -usual way.

French Beans, Nasturtiums, &c.

These, and most other small vegetable substances, particularly such as are green, may be pickled in the same vsy at gherkins; care being taken to use only fresh articles gathered in dry weather, at the proper season and stage of their growth. Vine leaves, where convenient, may be infused in the pickle, to improve their green colour. If, however, the vegetables are naturally of a good green, and the vinegar is well boiled in a copper or brass vessel thoroughly cleaned, it will seldom be necessary; and, in this, there is no danger: but vinegar must never be suffered to remain, after boiling, in any copper or brass vessel whatever.

Beet Roots.

Boil gently till they are full three parts done ((his will take from an hour and a half to two and a half,) then take them out, and when a little cooled, peel them, and cut them in slices about half an inch thick. Have ready a pickle for it, made by adding to each quart of vinegar, an ounce of black pepper, half an ounce of ginger pounded, same of salt, and of horseradish cut in thin slices, and you may warm it if you like, with a few capsicums, or a little cayenne;—put these ingredients into a jar, stop it close, and let them steep three days on a trivet by the side of the fire—then, when cold, pour the clear liquor on the beet root, which have previously arranged in a jar.

Red Cabbage.

Slice it into a colander, and sprinkle each layer with salt; let it drain two days, then put it into a jar, and pour boiling vinegar enough to cover, and put a few slices of red beet-root. Observe to choose the purple red cabbage. Those who like the flavour of spice will boil it with the vinegar. Cauliflower cut in branches, and thrown in after being salted, will look of a beautiful red.

Small Onions.

The small round onions, when delicately clear and white, make a pleasing and excellent pickle, commonly called buttononions. The following is the best method of pickling them:

Peel the finest and whitest small round-headed onions, generally most plentiful in the month of September, and boil them, with plenty of salt, in a quantity of milk and water; as soon as they boil up, and look a little clear on the outside, take them instantly up with a slice, lay them when cold and wiped dry into a jar, or rather wide-mouthed glass bottles, or small glasses, as they lose their white colour on the slightest exposure to the air after being pickled. In the mean time, having boiled some of the best white wine or double-distilled vinegar in a stone jar, with a little sliced horseradish, whitest ginger, and white pepper, by putting it in a vessel of boiling water, pour the liquid, when a little cooled, over the onions; and cover them, as soon as quite cold, with bladder and leather. If double-distilled vinegar be used, it will greatly contribute to preserve them white; but it must not, on any account, be boiled in metal.

Cauliflowers or Brocoli.

Choose those that are hard, yet sufficiently ripe—cut away the leaves and stalks.

Set on a stew-pan half full of water, salted in proportion of a quarter of a pound of salt to a quart of water—throw in the cauliflower, let it heat gradually; when it boils take it up with a spoon full of holes, and spread them on a cloth to dry before the fire, for twenty-four hours at least. When quite dry, put them, piece by piece, into jars or glass tie-overs, and cover them with the pickle we have directed for beet root. Nasturtiums are excellent prepared as above.

Lemons.

This receipt for pickling lemons we can confidently recommend. It is the communication of a lady, and has never before been published.

Grate off the outside rind of the lemons; rub them well with salt; afterwards put them in salt and water made very strong for nine or ten days, taking them out and rubbing them separately with salt every day during that time; then take them out, and dry them in a coarse cloth. Make a pickle of vinegar, ginger, mace, pepper, &c. boiled together, and put in the lemons; let them just simmer over the fire, and add a small