Beat the white of an egg to a froth—put to it a small lump of butter, and turn the coffee to it gradually, so that it may not curdle. It is difficult to distinguish the taste from fresh cream.
387. To keep Eggs several months.
It is a good plan to buy eggs for family use when cheap, and preserve them in the following manner: Mix half a pint of unslaked lime with the same quantity of salt, a couple of gallons of water. The water should be turned on boiling hot. When cold, put in the eggs, which should be perfectly fresh, and care should be taken not to crack any of them—if cracked, they will spoil directly. The eggs should be entirely covered with the lime-water, and kept in a stone pot, and the pot set in a cool place. If the above directions are strictly attended to, the eggs will keep good five months. The lime-water should not be so strong as to eat the shell, and all the eggs should be perfectly fresh when put in, as one bad one will spoil the whole.
388. To melt Fat for Shortening.
The fat of all kinds of meat, excepting that of ham and mutton, makes good shortening. Roast meat drippings, and the liquor in which meat is boiled, should stand until cold, to have the fat congeal, so that it can be taken off easily. When taken up, scrape off the sediment which adheres to the under side of the fat, cut the fat into small pieces, together with any scraps of fat from broiled meat that you may happen to have. Melt the fat slowly, then strain it, and let it remain till cold. When formed into a hard cake, take it up—if any sediment adheres to the under side, scrape it off. Melt the fat again—when partly cooled, sprinkle in salt, in the proportion of a tea-spoonful to a pound of the shortening. The dregs of the fat are good for soap grease. This shortening answers all the various purposes of lard very well, excepting in the hottest weather. The fat of cooked meat should not be suffered to remain more than a week in winter, and three days in summer, without being melted. Ham fat, if boiled in fresh water, and then clarified, answers very well to fry in. Mutton fat, if melted into hard cakes, will fetch a good price at the tallow-chandler’s. The leaves, and thin pieces of pork, should be used for lard. Cut them in small bits, and melt them slowly; then strain them through a cullender, with a thick cloth laid in it. As soon as the fat cools and thickens, sprinkle in salt, in the proportion of a tea-cup full to twenty weight of the lard. Stir it in well, then set the pot that contains it in a cool place. Some people have an idea that the pork scraps must be on the fire until they become brown, in order to have the lard kept sweet the year round, but it is not necessary, if salt is mixed with it.
389. To keep Vegetables through the Winter.
Succulent vegetables are preserved best in a cool, shady place, that is damp. Turnips, Irish potatoes, and similar vegetables, should be protected from the air and frost by being buried up in sand, and in very severe cold weather covered over with a linen cloth. It is said that the dust of charcoal, sprinkled over potatoes, will keep them from sprouting. I have also heard it said, that Carolina potatoes may be kept a number of months, if treated in the following manner: Take those that are large, and perfectly free from decay—pack them in boxes of dry sand, and set the boxes in a place exposed to the influence of smoke, and inaccessible to frost.
All kinds of herbs should be gathered on a dry day, just before, or while in blossom. Tie them in bundles, and suspend them in a dry, airy place, with the blossoms downwards. When perfectly dry, wrap the medicinal ones in paper and keep them from the air. Pick off the leaves of those which are to be used in cooking, pound and sift them fine, and keep the powder in bottles, corked up tight.