and let them lie six days, being turned every day. Then take them up, wipe dry, and cut into pieces; lay them in a deep straight-sided jar, with a pound of the best salt butter dispersed in little lumps here and there between them, subject this to the action of a water bath until the meat is tender. You can raise the heat of the boiling water which surrounds the jar, by adding plenty of salt to it, by eight deg. Fahr. Then while hot pour off the gravy and set the meat in a dish to go cold. Next day take off the butter and fat from the gravy, cut your meat into dice, take out the films and strings, and with the butter and pounding bring the meat into a nice plastic consistence. If your hare is to be very highly flavoured you may add more thyme and cayenne. Now fill your pots and cover well with clarified butter, and again with wetted bladder.
POTTED NEATS’ TONGUES.
Unless the tongues were cured according to your own receipts, you cannot tell how to treat them for potting. I shall therefore consider that you have been under the necessity of purchasing some out of the pickle tub of the butcher, which, generally speaking, are not remarkable for excellence as regards flavour, and please observe that neats’ tongues have no piquant flavour of their own, it is always created by the curer. Take two tongues of seven or eight pounds each, boil them as usual, and rather underdone; take off the peel and extra root, gullet, and two and a half inches of the extreme tip, cut them into slices one inch thick, and lay them down in a jar, with
| Molasses | 1 | lb. |
| Jamaica pepper | 1 | oz. |
| Garlic, minced | ½ | oz. |
| Shalots, minced | 1 | oz. |
| Bay leaves, in powder | 1 | oz. |
| Four laurel leaves | ||
| Bay salt | ½ | lb. |
| Porter, or old ale | ½ | pint |
These must be simmered half an hour and put into the jar hot, then cover close with paper and let remain in a week; then take up and wash the meat quickly with water half a pint, and vinegar half a pint, cut then into dice and pound them in a mortar with fresh butter till you have got a nice, smooth, thick paste. Fill clean dry pots and jars, and leave them in a cool oven for two hours. Then press the meat down well, and next day cover with plenty of best clarified butter and tie white paper over. This is a quick method of getting a very excellent article of its sort, and as the same ingredients would perfect three or four tongues more in succession, it is economical in the end.
POTTED BEEF’S HEART.
You may not expect any thing particularly good as a relish from so common an article as a beef’s heart, but I often think there is more credit due to a person for producing a choice relish from what is considered an inferior base, than in spoiling an expensive natural production in the attempt to improve it. In this case I fear not to give satisfaction. The expense is really trifling, and the trouble reducible to a pleasure. Get a fine ox heart, with plenty of fat on it, hang it up a dry room, but not in an air current, for a week; then empty the cavities of the clotted blood, cut out the deaf ears as low down internally as your knife will reach, cut open a communication between the upper cavities and the lower ones, but on no account penetrate through the outside bark of the heart. Tie good string round and about it, so that the meat may be hung in various ways when needed, and rub it well for a quarter of an hour with the following:
| West India molasses | ¼ | lb. |
| Strong vinegar | ½ | pint |
| Eschalots, minced | 2 | oz. |
simmered for twenty minutes and let go cold. Hang up the heart point downwards, and fill the holes with the mixture. Rub it daily for a week, keeping the cavities filled. Then boil up the pickle, adding
| Jamaica pepper, ground | 1½ | oz. |
| Garlic, minced | 1 | oz. |
| Bay salt | 3 | oz. |
| Black pepper, ground | 1 | oz. |