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. Eaton Mary
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