MUSHROOMS PICKLED.—
For pickling, the small button mushrooms are best. After cutting off the stalk closely, and with a sharp penknife peeling off carefully their thin outside skin, measure two quarts, taking care that they are all of the right sort, and freshly gathered; the outside of a dull whitish color, and the underside of a fine pinkish salmon tinge. If very white above and below, or if bright yellow, they are poisonous. Good mushrooms grow always in open fields or airy places; never in woods or marshes. To pickle two quarts, prepare eight little bags of very clear muslin; and tie up in each bag six blades of mace, six slices of root ginger, and half a nutmeg broken up. Have ready four glass jars, such as are considered to hold a quart. Lay a bag of spice in the bottom of each. Having sprinkled the mushrooms well with salt, let them rest till next day. Then divide the mushrooms and their liquor into four pints. Put one pint into each jar, with a bag of spice at the bottom, and another at the top. Pour on boiling cider vinegar of the best quality, and finish with a table-spoonful of salad oil. Cork the jars immediately, and tie leather carefully over the top. All mushrooms turn brown on the under-side the day after they are gathered, and sometimes sooner.
Boiling the spice in the vinegar will weaken the mushroom flavor. When you open a jar of pickled mushrooms, immediately cork it again; tie on the leather cover, and use it up as soon as possible. Therefore, pint jars, with half a pint of mushrooms in each, are convenient.
BELL-PEPPERS PICKLED.—
Take fine full-grown bell-peppers. Make a brine in a stone jar of salt and water, strong enough to float an egg, and let the peppers remain in it two days, putting a weight on the cover to keep it down. Then take them out, wash them well in cold water, drain them, and wipe them dry. Cut a slit in the side of each, and extract all the seeds, as if left in, they will be entirely too hot. Through these slits let all the water run out. Put them into a clean stone jar. Boil sufficient of the best cider vinegar, interspersed with the muslin bags of broken-up cinnamon, mace, and nutmeg. Pour it, boiling hot, on the peppers in the jar. Distribute the bags of spice among the peppers, and cork the jar warm. You may stuff the peppers in the manner of mangoes, with pickled red cabbage finely shred, minced onions and minced cucumbers pickled, and seasoned with a little mustard seed, ginger, and mace. Tie up the slit with packthread, crossing all round. Fill up the jars with vinegar, putting sweet oil on the top.
Your may green bell-peppers in the usual way, with vine leaves or cabbage leaves.
All pickles should be kept in a dry place. If you find them mouldy they are not always spoiled. Take them out of the jar, wipe off all the mould carefully, and throw away the vinegar. Wash the jar very clean, scald it, and set it in the sun to purify still more. Make a new pickle with fresh seasoning, and put them into that.