The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

CASKS. New casks are apt to give beer a bad taste, if not well scalded and seasoned before they are used. Boil therefore two pecks of bran or malt dust in a copper of water, pour it hot into the cask, stop it close, and let it stand two days. Then wash it clean, and dry it fit for use. Old casks are apt to grow musty, if allowed to stand by neglected; they should therefore be closely stopped as soon as emptied. When tainted, put in some lime, fill up with water, and let them stand a day or two. If this be not sufficient, the head must be taken out, the inside well scoured, and the head replaced.

CATERPILLARS. These noxious insects, sustained by leaves and fruit, have been known in all ages and nations for their depredations on the vegetable world. In August and September they destroy cabbages and turnips in great abundance, and commit their ravages in fields and gardens whenever the easterly winds prevail. Various means have been devised for their destruction, and any of the following which may happen to be the most convenient, may be employed with very good effect. Mix and heat three quarts of water and one quart of vinegar, put in a full pound of soot, and stir it with a whisk till the whole is incorporated. Sprinkle the plants with this preparation, every morning and evening, by dipping in a brush and shedding it over them; and in a few days all the cankers will disappear. Or sow with hemp all the borders where cabbages are planted, so as to enclose them, and not one of these vermin will approach. When gooseberry or currant bushes are attacked, a very simple expedient will suffice. Put pieces of woollen rags in every bush, the caterpillars will take refuge in them during the night, and in the morning quantities of them may thus be taken and destroyed. If this do not succeed, dissolve an ounce of alum in a quart of tobacco liquor; and as soon as the leaves of the plants or bushes appear in the least corroded, sprinkle on the mixture with a brush. If any eggs be deposited, they never come forward after this application; and if changed into worms they will sicken and die, and fall off. Nothing is more effectual than to dust the leaves of plants with sulphur put into a piece of muslin, or thrown upon them with a dredging box: this not only destroys the insects, but materially promotes the health of the plants. When caterpillars attack fruit trees, they may be destroyed by a strong decoction of equal quantities of rue, wormwood, and tobacco, sprinkled on the leaves and branches while the fruit is ripening. Or take a chafing-dish of burning charcoal, place it under the branches of the bush or tree, and throw on it a little brimstone. The vapour of the sulphur, and the suffocating fume arising from the charcoal, will not only destroy all the insects, but prevent the plants from being infested with them any more that season. Black cankers, which commit great devastation among turnips, are best destroyed by turning a quantity of ducks into the field infested by them. Every fourth year these cankers become flies, when they deposit their eggs on the ground, and thus produce maggots. The flies on their first appearance settle on the trees, especially the oak, elm, and maple: in this state they should be shaken down on packsheets, and destroyed. If this were done before they begin to deposit their eggs on the ground, the ravages of the canker would in a great measure be prevented.

CAUDLE. Make a fine smooth gruel of half grits, strain it after being well boiled, and stir it at times till quite cold. When to be used, add sugar, wine, lemon peel and nutmeg. A spoonful of brandy may be added, and a little lemon juice if approved. Another way is to boil up half a pint of fine gruel, with a bit of butter the size of a large nutmeg, a spoonful of brandy, the same of white wine, one of capillaire, a bit of lemon peel and nutmeg. – Another. Beat up the yolk of an egg with sugar, mix it with a large spoonful of cold water, a glass of wine, and nutmeg. Mix it by degrees with a pint of fine gruel, not thick, but while it is boiling hot. This caudle is very agreeable and nourishing. Some add a glass of beer and sugar, or a tea-spoonful of brandy. – A caudle for the sick and lying-in is made as follows. Set three quarts of water on the fire, mix smooth as much oatmeal as will thicken the whole, with a pint of cold water; and when the water boils pour in the thickening, and add twenty peppercorns in fine powder. Boil it up to a tolerable thickness; then add sugar, half a pint of good table beer, and a glass of gin, all heated up together.

CAULIFLOWERS. Choose those that are close and white, cut off the green leaves, and see that there be no caterpillars about the stalk. Soak them an hour in cold water, then boil them in milk and water, and take care to skim the saucepan, that not the least foulness may fall on the flower. The vegetable should be served very white, and not boiled too much. – Cauliflower dressed in white sauce should be half boiled, and cut into handsome pieces. Then lay them in a stewpan with a little broth, a bit of mace, a little salt, and a dust of white pepper. Simmer them together half an hour; then add a little cream, butter, and flour. Simmer a few minutes longer, and serve them up. – To dress a cauliflower with parmesan, boil the vegetable, drain it on a sieve, and cut the stalk so that the flower will stand upright about two inches above the dish. Put it into a stewpan with a little white sauce, and in a few minutes it will be done enough. Then dish it with the sauce round, put parmesan grated over it, and brown it with a salamander.

CAULIFLOWERS RAGOUT. Pick and wash the cauliflowers very clean, stew them in brown gravy till they are tender, and season with pepper and salt. Put them in a dish, pour gravy on them, boil some sprigs of cauliflower white, and lay round.

CAYENNE. Those who are fond of this spice had better make it themselves of English capsicums or chillies, for there is no other way of being sure that it is genuine. Pepper of a much finer flavour may be obtained in this way, without half the heat of the foreign article, which is frequently adulterated and coloured with red lead. Capsicums and chillies are ripe and in good condition, during the months of September and October. The flavour of the chillies is superior to that of the capsicums, and will be good in proportion as they are dried as soon as possible, taken care that they be not burnt. Take away the stalks, put the pods into a cullender, and set them twelve hours before the fire to dry. Then put them into a mortar, with one fourth their weight of salt; pound and rub them till they are as fine as possible, and put the powder into a well-stopped bottle. A hundred large chillies will produce about two ounces of cayenne. When foreign cayenne is pounded, it is mixed with a considerable portion of salt, to prevent its injuring the eyes: but English chillies may be pounded in a deep mortar without any danger, and afterwards passed through a fine sieve.

CELERY SAUCE. Cut small half a dozen heads of clean white celery, with two sliced onions. Put them into a stewpan, with a small piece of butter, and sweat them over a slow fire till quite tender. Add two spoonfuls of flour, half a pint of broth, salt and pepper, and a little cream or milk. Boil it a quarter of an hour, and pass it through a fine hair sieve with the back of a spoon. When celery is not in season, a quarter of a dram of celery seed, or a little of the essence, will impregnate half a pint of sauce with all the flavour of the vegetable. This sauce is intended for boiled turkey, veal, or fowls.

CELERY SOUP. Split half a dozen heads of celery into slips about two inches long, wash them well, drain them on a hair sieve, and put them into a soup pot, with three quarts of clear gravy. Stew it very gently by the side of the fire, about an hour, till the celery is tender. If any scum arise, take it off, and season with a little salt. When celery cannot be procured, half a dram of the seed, pounded fine, will give a flavour to the soup, if put in a quarter of an hour before it is done. A little of the essence of the celery will answer the same purpose.

CELLARS. Beer and ale that have been well brewed, are often injured or spoiled in the keeping, for want of paying proper attention to the state of the cellar. It is necessary however to exclude as much as possible all external air from these depositaries, as the state of the surrounding atmosphere has a most material influence upon the liquor, even after it has been made a considerable time. If the cellar is liable to damps in the winter, it will tend to chill the liquor, and make it turn flat; or if exposed to the heat of summer, it will be sure to turn sour. The great object therefore is to have a cellar that is both cool and dry. Dorchester beer, generally in high esteem, owes much of its fineness to this circumstance. The soil in that county being very chalky, of a close texture and free from damps, the cellars are always cool and dry, and the liquors are found to keep in the best possible manner. The Nottingham ale derives much of its celebrity also from the peculiar construction of the cellars, which are generally excavated out of a rock of sand-stone to a considerable depth, of a circular or conical form, with benches formed all round in the same way, and on these the barrels are placed in regular succession.

CERATE. Half a pound of white wax, half a pound of calumine stone finely powdered, and a pint and a half of olive oil, will make an excellent cerate. Let the calumine be rubbed smooth with some of the oil, and added to the rest of the oil and wax, which should be previously melted together. Stir them together till they are quite cold.

CHARDOONS. To dress chardoons, cut them into pieces of six inches long, and tie them in a bunch. Boil them tender, then flour and fry them with a piece of butter, and when brown serve them up. Or tie them in bundles, and serve them on toast as boiled asparagus, with butter poured over. Another way is to boil them, and then heat them up in fricassee sauce. Or boil in salt and water, dry them, dip them into butter, fry, and serve them up with melted butter. Or having boiled, stew, and toss them up with white or brown gravy. Add a little cayenne, ketchup, and salt, and thicken with a bit of butter and flour.

CHARLOTTE. Rub a baking-dish thick with butter, and line the bottom and sides with very thin slices of white bread. Put in layers of apples thinly sliced, strewing sugar between, and bits of butter, till the dish is full. In the mean time, soak in warm milk as many thin slices of bread as will cover the whole; over which lay a plate, and a weight to keep the bread close on the apples. To a middling sized dish use half a pound of butter in the whole, and bake slowly for three hours.

CHEAP SOUP. Much nutricious food might be provided for the poor and necessitous, at a very trifling expence, by only adopting a plan of frugality, and gathering up the fragments, that nothing be lost. Save the liquor in which every piece of meat, ham, or tongue has been boiled, however salt; for it is easy to use only a part of it, and to add a little fresh water. Then, by the addition of more vegetables, the bones of meat used in the family, the pieces of meat that come from table on the plates, and rice, Scotch barley, or oatmeal, there will be some gallons of useful soup saved. The bits of meat should only be warmed in the soup, and remain whole; the bones and sinewy parts should be boiled till they yield their nourishment. If the fragments are ready to put into the boiler as soon as the meat is served, it will save lighting the fire, and a second cooking. Take turnips, carrots, leeks, potatoes, leaves of lettuce, or any sort of vegetable that is at hand; cut them small, and throw in with the thick part of peas, after they have been pulped for soup, and grits, or coarse oatmeal, which have been used for gruel. Should the soup be poor of meat, the long boiling of the bones, and different vegetables, will afford better nourishment than the laborious poor can generally obtain; especially as they are rarely tolerable cooks, and have not fuel to do justice to what they buy. In almost every family there is some superfluity; and if it be prepared with cleanliness and care, the benefit will be very great to the receiver, and the satisfaction no less to the giver. The cook or servant should never be allowed to wash away as useless, the peas or grits of which soup or gruel have been made, broken potatoes, the green heads of celery, the necks and feet of fowls, and particularly the shanks of mutton; all of which are capable of adding flavour and richness to the soup. The bones, heads, and fins of fish, containing a portion of isinglass, may also be very usefully applied, by stewing them in the water in which the fish is boiled, and adding it to the soup, with the gravy that is left in the dish. If strained, it considerably improves the meat soup, particularly for the sick; and when such are to be supplied, the milder parts of the spare bones and meat should be used, with very little of the liquor of the salt meats. If a soup be wanted for the weakly and infirm, put two cow heels and a breast of mutton into a large pan, with four ounces of rice, one onion, twenty corns of Jamaica pepper, and twenty black, a turnip, and carrot, and four gallons of water. Cover it with white paper, and bake it six hours.

CHEESE. This well-known article of domestic consumption, is prepared from curdled milk, cleared from the whey. It differs very much in quality and flavour, according to the pasture in which the cows feed, and the manner in which the article itself is made. The same land rarely produces very fine butter, and remarkably fine cheese; yet with proper management, it may give one pretty good, where the other excels in quality. Cheese made on the same land, from new milk, skimmed or mixed milk, will differ greatly, not only in richness, but also in taste. Valuable cheese may be made from a tolerable pasture, by taking the whole of two meals of milk, and proportioning the thickness of the vat to the quantity, rather than having a wide and flat one, as the former will produce the mellowest cheese. The addition of a pound of fresh-made butter of a good quality, will cause the cheese made on poor land to be of a very different quality from that usually produced by it. A few cheeses thus made, when the weather is not extremely hot, and when the cows are in full feed, are well adapted to the use of the parlour. Cheese for common family use may very well be produced by two meals of skim, and one of new milk; or on good land, by the skim milk only. The principal ingredient in making cheese is the rennet, maw, or inner part of a calf's stomach, which is cleaned, salted, and hung up in paper bags to dry. The night before it is used, it is washed and soaked in a little water. When the milk is ready, being put into a large tub, warm a part of it to the degree of new milk; but if made too hot, the cheese will be tough. Pour in as much rennet as will curdle the milk, and then cover it over. Let it stand till completely turned; then strike the curd down several times with the skimming dish, and let it separate, still keeping it covered. There are two modes of breaking the curd, and there will be a difference in the taste of the cheese, according as either is observed. One is to gather it with the hands very gently towards the side of the tub, letting the whey pass through the fingers till it is cleared; and lading it off as it collects. The other is, to get the whey from it by early breaking the curd. The last method deprives it of many of its oily particles, and is therefore less proper. In pursuing the process, put the vat on a ladder over the tub, and fill it with curd by means of the skimmer. Press the curd close with the hand, add more as it sinks, and finally leave it two inches above the edge. Before the vat is filled, the cheesecloth must be laid at the bottom; and when full, drawn smooth over on all sides. In salting the cheese, two modes may be adopted; either by mixing it in the curd while in the tub, after the whey is out, or by putting it in the vat, and crumbling the curd all to pieces with it, after the first squeezing with the hand has dried it. These different methods prevail in the different parts of the country. Put a board under and over the vat, and place it in the press: in two hours turn it out, and put in a fresh cheesecloth. Press it again for eight or nine hours, salt it all over, and turn it again in the vat. Let it stand in the press fourteen or sixteen hours, observing to put the cheeses last made undermost. Before putting them the last time into the vat, pare the edges if they do not look smooth. The vat should have holes at the sides, and at the bottom, to let all the whey pass through. Put on clean boards, and change and scald them. When cheese is made, care must be taken to preserve it sound and good. For this purpose wash it occasionally in warm whey, wipe it once a month, and keep it on a rack. If wanted to ripen soon, a damp cellar will bring it forward. When a whole cheese is cut, the inside of the larger quantity should be spread with butter, and the outside wiped, to preserve it. To keep those in daily use moist, let a clean cloth be wrung out from cold water, and wrapt round them when carried from the table. Dry cheese may be used to advantage to grate for serving with macaroni or eating without; and any thing tending to prevent waste, is of some consequence in a system of domestic economy. To preserve cheeses from decay, lay them in an airy situation, and cover them with dried leaves of the yellow star of Bethlehem. The tender branches of the common birch, will prevent the ravages of mites. If cheese get hard, and lose its flavour, pour some sweet wine over four ounces of pearlash, till the liquor ceases to ferment. Filter the solution, dip into it some clean linen cloths, cover the cheese with them, and put in a cool dry place. Turn the cheese every day, repeat the application for some weeks, and the cheese will recover its former flavour and goodness.

CHEESECAKES. Strain the whey from the curd of two quarts of milk; when rather dry, crumble it through a coarse sieve. With six ounces of fresh butter, mix one ounce of blanched almonds pounded, a little orange-flower water, half a glass of raisin wine, a grated biscuit, four ounces of currants, some nutmeg and cinnamon in fine powder. Beat them up together with three eggs, and half a pint of cream, till quite light: then fill the pattipans three parts full. – To make a plainer sort of cheesecakes, turn three quarts of milk to curd; break it and drain off the whey. When quite dry, break it in a pan, with two ounces of butter, till perfectly smooth. Add a pint and a half of thin cream or good milk, a little sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg, and three ounces of currants. – Another way is to mix the curd of three quarts of milk, a pound of currants, twelve ounces of Lisbon sugar, a quarter of an ounce of cinnamon, the same of nutmeg, the peel of one lemon chopped as fine as possible, the yolks of eight and the whites of six eggs, a pint of scalded cream and a glass of brandy. Put a light thin puff paste in the pattipans, and three parts fill them.

CHEESE PUFFS. Strain some cheese curd from the whey, and beat half a pint of it fine in a mortar, with a spoonful and a half of flour, three eggs, but only one white. Add a spoonful of orange-flower water, a quarter of a nutmeg, and sugar to make it pretty sweet. Lay a little of this paste, in small round cakes, on a tin plate. If the oven be hot, a quarter of an hour will bake them. Serve the puffs with pudding sauce.

CHERRY BRANDY. Stone ten pounds of black cherries, bruise the stones in a mortar, and put them to a gallon of the best brandy. Let it stand a month close covered, pour it clear from the sediment, and bottle it. Morella cherries managed in this way will make a fine rich cordial.

CHERRY JAM. To twelve pounds of ripe fruit, Kentish or duke cherries, weigh one pound of sugar. Break the stones of part, and blanch them; then put them to the fruit and sugar, and boil all gently till the jam comes clear from the pan. Pour it into china plates to come up dry to the table, and keep it in boxes with white paper between.

CHERRY PIE. This should have a mixture of other fruit; currants or raspberries, or both. Currant pie is also best with raspberries.

CHERRY WINE. Mash some ripe cherries, and press them through a hair sieve. Allow three pounds of lump sugar to two quarts of juice, stir them together till the sugar is dissolved, and fill a small barrel with the liquor. Add a little brandy, close down the bung when it has done hissing, let it stand six months and bottle it off.

CHERRIES IN BRANDY. Weigh some fine morellas, cut off half the stalk, prick them with a new needle, and drop them into a jar or wide-mouth bottle. Pound three quarters of the weight of sugar or white candy, and strew over; fill the bottle up with brandy, and tie a bladder over.

CHERVIL SAUCE. The flavour of this fine herb, so long a favourite with the French cook, is a strong concentration of the combined taste of parsley and fennel, but more aromatic and agreeable than either, and makes an excellent sauce for boiled poultry or fish. Wash the chervil, and pick it very clean; put a tea-spoonful of salt into half a pint of boiling water, boil the chervil about ten minutes, drain it on a sieve, and mince it very fine. Put it into a sauce boat, mix with it by degrees some good melted butter, and send it up in the boat.

CHESHIRE CHEESE. In preparing this article, the evening's milk is not touched till the next morning, when the cream is taken off and warmed in a pan, heated with boiling water; one third part of the milk is heated in a similar manner. The cows being milked early in the morning, the new milk, and that of the preceding night thus prepared, are poured into a large tub along with the cream. A piece of rennet kept in lukewarm water since the preceding evening, is put into the tub in order to curdle the milk, and the curd is coloured by an infusion of marigolds or carrots being rubbed into it. It is then stirred together, covered up warm, and allowed to stand about half an hour till it is coagulated; when it is first turned over with a bowl to separate the whey from the curds, and broken soon after into small pieces. When it has stood some time, the whey is taken out, and a weight laid at the bottom of the tub to press out the remainder. As soon as it becomes more solid, it is cut into slices, and turned over several times to extract all the whey, and again pressed with weights. Being taken out of the tub, it is broken very small, salted, and put into a cheese vat. It is then strongly pressed and weighted, and wooden skewers are placed round the cheese, which are frequently drawn out. It is then shifted out of the vat with a cloth placed at the bottom; and being turned it is put into the vat again. The upper part is next broken by the hand down to the middle, salted, pressed, weighted, and skewered as before, till all the whey is extracted. The cheese is then reversed into another vat, likewise warmed with a cloth under it, and a tin hoop put round the upper part of the cheese. These operations take up the greater part of the forenoon; the pressing of the cheese requires about eight hours more, as it must be twice turned in the vat, round which thin wire skewers are passed, and shifted occasionally. The next morning it ought to be turned and pressed again; and on the following day the outside is salted, and a cloth binder tied round it. The outsides are sometimes rubbed with butter, in order to give them a coat; and being turned and cleaned every day, they are left to dry two or three weeks.

CHICKENS. Fowls are chiefly considered as an article of luxury, and are generally sold at a high price; yet the rearing of them is seldom productive of much pecuniary advantage. They are liable to innumerable accidents in their early stages, which require incessant watchfulness and care; and if the grain on which they feed is to be purchased, the labour and expence are scarcely requited by the price they bear in the market. The Irish peasantry are in the habit of rearing a great number of fowls, by substituting the offal of potatoes instead of grain; but the flesh is neither so firm nor so good as that of chickens raised in England. It is much to be desired therefore, that encouragement could be given to the cottagers of this country for rearing a larger quantity of poultry, by means less expensive than the present, in order that the market might be supplied on better terms with an article of food so fine and delicate, and in such general respect. Various artificial means have been used for brooding chickens, in order to increase their number, and to bring them forward at an earlier season, but none of them have been found to answer, though in Egypt immense quantities are raised every year by the heat of ovens, bringing the eggs to a state of maturity. A well-fed hen is supposed to lay about two hundred eggs in a year; but as she does not sit more than once or twice in that time, it is but a small quantity of chickens that can be hatched in the usual way, and it would be highly desirable if some other expedient could be devised. – The most expeditious way of fattening chickens is to mix a quantity of rice flour sufficient for present use, with milk and a little coarse sugar, and stir it over the fire till it comes to a thick paste. Feed the chickens with it while it is warm by putting as much into their coops as they can eat; and if a little beer be given them to drink, it will fatten them very soon. A mixture of oatmeal and treacle made into crumbs is also good food for chickens; and they are so fond of it, that they will grow and fatten much faster than in the common way. Poultry in general should be fed in coops, and kept very clean. Their common food is barley meal mixed with water: this should not be put in troughs, but laid upon a board, which should be washed clean every time fresh food is put upon it. The common complaint of fowls, called the pip, is chiefly occasioned by foul and heated water being given them. No water should be allowed, more than is mixed up with their food; but they should often be provided with some clean gravel in their coop. – The method of fattening poultry for the London market, is liable to great objection. They are put into a dark place, and crammed with a paste made of barley meal, mutton suet, treacle or coarse sugar, mixed with milk, which makes them ripe in about a fortnight; but if kept longer, the fever that is induced by this continual state of repletion, renders them red and unsaleable, and frequently kills them. Air and exercise are as indispensable to the health of poultry as to other animals; and without it, the fat will be all accumulated in the cellular membrane, instead of being dispersed throughout the system. A barn-door fowl is preferable to any other, only that it cannot be fatted in so short a time.