HASTY FRITTERS. Melt some butter in a saucepan, put in half a pint of good ale, and stir a little flour into it by degrees. Add a few currants, or chopped apples; beat them up quick, and drop a large spoonful at a time into the pan, till the bottom is nearly covered. Keep them separate, turn them with a slice; and when of a fine brown, serve them up hot, with grated sugar over them.
HASTY PUDDING. Boil some milk over a clear fire, and take it off. Keep putting in flour with one hand, and stirring it with the other, till it becomes quite thick. Boil it a few minutes, pour it into a dish, and garnish with pieces of butter. To make a better pudding, beat up an egg and flour into a stiff paste, and mince it fine. Put the mince into a quart of boiling milk, with a little butter and salt, cinnamon and sugar, and stir them carefully together. When sufficiently thickened, pour it into a dish, and stick bits of butter on the top. Or shred some suet, add grated bread, a few currants, the yolks of four eggs and the whites of two, with some grated lemon peel and ginger. Mix the whole together, and make it into balls the size and shape of an egg, with a little flour. Throw them into a skillet of boiling water, and boil them twenty minutes; but when sufficiently done, they will rise to the top. Serve with cold butter, or pudding sauce.
HATS. Gentlemen's hats are often damaged by a shower of rain, which takes off the gloss, and leaves them spotted. To prevent this, shake out the wet as much as possible, wipe the hat carefully with a clean handkerchief, observing to lay the beaver smooth. Then fix the hat in its original shape, and hang it to dry at a distance from the fire. Next morning, brush it several times with a soft brush in the proper direction, and the hat will have sustained but little injury. A flat iron moderately heated, and passed two or three times gently over the hat, will raise the gloss, and give the hat its former good appearance.
HAUNCH OF MUTTON. Keep it as long as it can be preserved sweet, and wash it with warm milk and water, or vinegar if necessary. When to be dressed especially, observe to wash it well, lest the outside should contract a bad flavour from keeping. Lay a paste of coarse flour on strong paper, and fold the haunch in it; set it a great distance from the fire, and allow proportionate time for the paste. Do not remove it till nearly forty minutes before serving, and then baste it continually. Bring the haunch nearer the fire before the paste is taken off, and froth it up the same as venison. A gravy must be made of a pound and a half of a loin of old mutton, simmered in a pint of water to half the quantity, and no seasoning but salt. Brown it with a little burnt sugar, and send it up in the dish. Care should be taken to retain a good deal of gravy in the meat, for though long at the fire, the distance and covering will prevent its roasting out. Serve with currant-jelly sauce.
HAUNCH OF VENISON. If it be the haunch of a buck, it will take full three hours and a half roasting; if a doe, about half an hour less. Venison should be rather under than overdone. Sprinkle some salt on a sheet of white paper, spread it over with butter, and cover the fat with it. Then lay a coarse paste on strong white paper, and cover the haunch; tie it with fine packthread, and set it at a distance from a good fire. Baste it often: ten minutes before serving take off the paste, draw the meat nearer the fire, and baste it with butter and a good deal of flour, to make it froth up well. Gravy for it should be put into a boat, and not into the dish, unless there is none in the venison. To make the gravy, cut off the fat from two or three pounds of a loin of old mutton, and set it in steaks on a gridiron for a few minutes just to brown one side. Put them into a saucepan with a quart of water, keep it closely covered for an hour, and simmer it gently. Then uncover it, stew it till the gravy is reduced to a pint, and season it with salt only. Currant-jelly sauce must be served in a boat. Beat up the jelly with a spoonful or two of port wine, and melt it over the fire. Where jelly runs short, a little more wine must be added, and a few lumps of sugar. Serve with French beans. If the old bread sauce be still preferred, grate some white bread, and boil it with port wine and water, and a large stick of cinnamon. When quite smooth, take out the cinnamon, and add some sugar.
HAY STACKS. In making stacks of new hay, care should be taken to prevent its heating and taking fire, by forming a tunnel completely through the centre. This may be done by stuffing a sack full of straw, and tying up the mouth with a cord; then make the rick round the sack, drawing it up as the rick advances, and taking it out when finished.
HEAD ACHE. This disorder generally arises from some internal cause, and is the symptom of a disease which requires first to be attended to; but where it is a local affection only, it may be relieved by bathing the part affected with spirits of hartshorn, or applying a poultice of elder flowers. In some cases the most obstinate pain is removed by the use of vervain, both internally in the form of a decoction, and also by suspending the herb round the neck. Persons afflicted with headache should beware of costiveness: their drink should be diluting, and their feet and legs kept warm. It is very obvious, that as many disorders arise from taking cold in the head, children should be inured to a light and loose covering in their infancy, by which means violent headaches might be prevented in mature age: and the maxim of keeping the feet warm and the head cool, should be strictly attended to.
HEAD AND PLUCK. Whether of lamb or mutton, wash the head clean, take the black part from the eyes, and the gall from the liver. Lay the head in warm water; boil the lights, heart, and part of the liver; chop them small, and add a little flour. Put it into a saucepan with some gravy, or a little of the liquor it was boiled in, a spoonful of ketchup, a small quantity of lemon juice, cream, pepper, and salt. Boil the head very white and tender, lay it in the middle of the dish, and the mince meat round it. Fry the other part of the liver with some small bits of bacon, lay them on the mince meat, boil the brains the same as for a calf's head, beat up an egg and mix with them, fry them in small cakes, and lay them on the rim of the dish. Garnish with lemon and parsley.
HEART BURN. Persons subject to this disorder, ought to drink no stale liquors, and to abstain from flatulent food. Take an infusion of bark, or any other stomachic bitter; or a tea-spoonful of the powder of gum arabic dissolved in a little water, or chew a few sweet almonds blanched. An infusion of anise seeds, or ginger, have sometimes produced the desired effect.
HEDGE HOG. Make a cake of any description, and bake it in a mould the shape of a hedge hog. Turn it out of the mould, and let it stand a day or two. Prick it with a fork, and let it remain all night in a dish full of sweet wine. Slit some blanched almonds, and stick about it, and pour boiled custard in the dish round it.