SPRATS LIKE ANCHOVIES. Salt them well, and let the salt drain from them. In twenty-four hours wipe them dry, but do not wash them. Mix four ounces of common salt, an ounce of bay salt, an ounce of saltpetre, a quarter of an ounce of sal-prunella, and half a tea-spoonful of cochineal, all in the finest powder. Sprinkle it amongst three quarts of the fish, and pack them in two stone jars. Keep them in a cool place, fastened down with a bladder. These artificial anchovies are pleasant on bread and butter, but the genuine should be used for sauce.
SPRING FRUIT PUDDING. Peel and wash four dozen sticks of rhubarb, put them into the stewpan with a lemon, a little cinnamon, and sweeten the whole with moist sugar. Set it over the fire, and reduce it to a marmalade. Pass it through a hair sieve, add the yolks of four eggs and one white, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, half a nutmeg, and the peel of a lemon grated. Beat all well together, line the inside of a pie dish with good puff paste, put in the pudding, and bake it half an hour.
SPRING SOUP. Put a pint of peas into a saucepan with some chervil, purslain, lettuce, sorrel, parsley, three or four onions, and a piece of butter. Shake them over the fire a few minutes, add warm water in proportion to the vegetables, and stew them till they are well done. Strain off the soup, and pulp the vegetables through a tammis or sieve. Heat the pulp with three parts of the soup, mix six yolks of eggs with the remainder of it, and thicken it over the fire. When ready to serve, add this to the soup, and season the whole with salt.
SPROUTS. Before the sprouts of greens are boiled, trim and wash them very nicely, and drain them in a cullender. Then put them into boiling water, with some salt thrown in, and sprinkle a little more upon the sprouts. Boil them very fast, and clear off any scum that may arise. When the stalks are quite tender, drain the sprouts off directly into a cullender, or they will lose both their flavour and colour. Serve them up laid neatly in the dish with a fork, as that will not break them like a spoon. Borecole and Brussel sprouts, like all the cabbage species, should be boiled in plenty of water, changing it when about half done, and boiling them well.
SPRUCE BEER. Pour sixteen gallons of warm water into a barrel, with twelve pounds of molasses, and half a pound of the essence of spruce. When cool, add a pint of yeast, stir it well for two or three days, and put it into stone bottles. Wire down the corks, pack the bottles in saw dust, and the liquor will ripen in about a fortnight.
SQUAB PIE. Prepare apples as for other pies, and lay them in rows with mutton chops. Shred some onion, and sprinkle it among them, and also some sugar.—Another. Make a good crust, and sheet your dish all over; lay a layer of pippins, and strew sugar over them; cut a loin of mutton into steaks, season them with pepper and salt; lay a layer of steaks, then pippins; then lay some onions sliced thin on the apples, then the rest of your mutton, and apples and onions over all; pour in a pint of water, and lid your pye; let it be well baked.
STAFFORDSHIRE BEEF STEAKS. Beat them a little with a rollingpin, then flour and season, and fry them of a fine light brown, with sliced onions. Lay the steaks into a stewpan, and pour over them as much boiling water as will serve for sauce. Stew them very gently for half an hour, and add a spoonful of ketchup or walnut liquor, before they are served up.
STAFFORDSHIRE SYLLABUB. Put into a bowl a pint of cider, and a glass of brandy, with sugar and nutmeg. Pour into it some warm milk, from a large tea-pot, held up high, and moved over it.
STAINS BY ACIDS. Wet the injured part, and lay on some salt of wormwood; then rub it, without diluting it with more water. Or let the cloth imbibe a little water without dipping, and hold the part over a lighted match at a due distance. The spots will be removed by the sulphureous gas. Another way is to tie up some pearl ash in the stained part, then scrape some soap into cold soft water to make a lather, and boil the linen till the stain disappears.
STAINS IN MAHOGANY. If any kind of furniture get stained with ink, dilute half a tea-spoonful of oil of vitriol with a large spoonful of water, and touch the stained part with a feather dipped in the liquid. It must be watched, and not suffered to remain too long, or it will leave a white mark. It is better to rub it quick, and to moisten it again, if the stain be not entirely removed.