OINTMENT OF MARSHMALLOWS. Take half a pound of marshmallow roots, three ounces of linseed, and three ounces of fennugreek seed. Bruise and boil them gently half an hour in a quart of water, and then add two quarts of sweet oil. Boil them together till the water is all evaporated: then strain off the oil, and add to it a pound of bees' wax, half a pound of yellow rosin, and two ounces of common turpentine. Melt them together over a slow fire, and keep stirring till the ointment is cold.
OINTMENT OF SULPHUR. This is the safest and best application for the itch, and will have no disagreeable smell, if made in the following manner. Take four ounces of fresh lard, an ounce and a half of flour of sulphur, two drams of crude sal-ammoniac, and ten or a dozen drops of lemon essence. When made into an ointment, rub it on the parts affected.
OLIVES. This foreign article, sent over in a state of preservation, requires only to be kept from the air. Olives are of three kinds, Italian, Spanish, and French, of different sizes and flavour. Each should be firm, though some are most fleshy.
OMLET. Make a batter of eggs and milk, and a very little flour. Add chopped parsley, green onions, or chives, or a very small quantity of shalot, a little pepper and salt, and a scrape or two of nutmeg. Boil some butter in a small frying-pan, and pour the above batter into it. When one side is of a fine yellow brown, turn it and do the other: double it when served. Some lean ham scraped, or grated tongue, put in at first, is a very pleasant addition. Four eggs will make a pretty omlet, but some will use eight or ten, and only a small proportion of flour, but a good deal of parsley. If the taste be approved, a little tarragon will give a fine flavour. Ramakins and omlet, though usually served in the course, would be much better if they were sent up after, that they might be eaten as hot as possible.
ONION GRAVY. Peel and slice some onions into a small stewpan, with an ounce of butter, adding cucumber or celery if approved. Set it on a slow fire, and turn the onion about till it is lightly browned; then stir in half an ounce of flour, a little broth, a little pepper and salt, and boil it up for a few minutes. Add a table-spoonful of port wine, the same of mushroom ketchup, and rub it through a fine sieve. It may be sharpened with a little lemon juice or vinegar. The flavour of this sauce may be varied by adding tarragon, or burnt vinegar.
ONION SAUCE. Peel the onions and boil them tender. Squeeze the water from them, chop and add them to butter that has been melted rich and smooth, with a little good milk instead of water. Boil it up once, and serve it for boiled rabbits, partridges, scrag or knuckle of veal or roast mutton. A turnip boiled with the onions makes them milder.
ONION SOUP. Put some carrots, turnips, and a shank bone, into the liquor in which a leg or neck of mutton has been boiled, and simmer them together two hours. Strain it on six onions, sliced and fried of a light brown; simmer the soup three hours, and skim it carefully. Put a small roll into it, or fried bread, and serve it up hot.
ONIONS. In order to obtain a good crop of onions, it is proper to sow at different seasons. On light soils sow in August, January, or early in February: on heavy wet soils in March, or early in April. Onions however should not be sown so soon as January, unless the ground be in a dry state, which is not often the case at that time of the year: otherwise, advantage should be taken of it. As this valuable root is known frequently to fail by the common method of culture, the best way is to sow the seed successively, that advantage may be taken of the seasons as they happen.
ORANGE BISCUITS. Boil whole Seville oranges in two or three waters, till most of the bitterness is gone. Cut them, and take out the pulp and juice; then beat the outside very fine in a mortar, and put to it an equal weight of double-refined sugar beaten and sifted. When extremely well mixed to a paste, spread it thin on china dishes, and set them in the sun, or before the fire. When half dry, cut it into what form you please, and turn the other side up to dry. Keep the biscuits in a box, with layers of paper. They are intended for desserts, and are also useful as a stomachic, to carry in the pocket on journeys, and for gouty stomachs.
ORANGE BRANDY. Steep the peels of twenty Seville oranges in three quarts of brandy, and let it stand a fortnight in a stone bottle. Boil two quarts of water with a pound and a half of loaf sugar nearly an hour, clarify,it with the white of an egg, strain it, and boil it till reduced nearly one half. When cold, strain the brandy into the syrup.