To four hundred large oysters allow a pint of cider vinegar, four grated nutmegs, sixteen blades of whole mace, six dozen of whole cloves, three dozen whole pepper corns, and a salt-spoonful of cayenne. Put the liquor into a porcelain kettle, and boil and skim it; when it has come to a hard boil, add the vinegar and put in the oysters with the seasoning of spices, &c. Give them one boil up, for if boiled longer they will shrivel and lose their flavour. Then put them into a stone or glass jar, cover them closely, and set them in a cool place. They must be quite cold when eaten.
You may give them a light reddish tint by boiling in the liquor a little prepared cochineal.
TO KEEP FRESH EGGS.—
Have a close, dry keg, for the purpose of receiving the eggs as they are brought in fresh from the hen's nests. An old biscuit keg will be best. Keep near it a patty-pan, or something of the sort, to hold a piece of clean white rag with some good lard tied up in it. While they are fresh and warm from the nest, grease each egg all over with the lard, not omitting even the smallest part; and then put it into the keg with the rest. Eggs preserved in this manner (and there is no better way) will continue good for months, provided they were perfectly fresh when greased; and it is useless to attempt preserving any but new-laid eggs. No process whatever, can restore or prevent from spoiling, any egg that is the least stale. Therefore, if you live in a city, or have not hens of your own, it is best to depend on buying eggs as you want them.
A MOLASSES PIE.—
Make a good paste, and having rolled it out thick, line a pie-dish with a portion of it. Then fill up the dish with molasses, into which you have previously stirred a table-spoonful, or more, of ground ginger. Cover it with an upper crust of the paste; notch the edges neatly; and bake it brown. This pie, plain as it is, will be found very good. It will be improved by laying a sliced orange or lemon in the bottom before you put in the molasses. To the ginger you may add a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon.
SOUP À LA LUCY.—
Take a large fowl; cut it up; put it with a few small onions into a soup-pot, and fry it brown in plenty of lard. Afterwards pour in as much water as you intend for the soup, and boil it slowly till the whole strength of the chicken is extracted, and the flesh drops in rags from the bones. An hour before dinner, strain off the liquid, return it to the pot (which must first be cleared entirely out) add the liquor of a quart of fresh oysters, and boil it again. In half an hour put in the oysters and mix into the soup two large table-spoonfuls of fresh butter rolled in flour; some whole pepper; blades of mace; and grated nutmeg. Toast some thick slices of bread (without the crust) cut them into dice, and put them into the soup tureen. For the fowl, you may substitute a knuckle of veal cut up; or a pair of rabbits.