PICKLED CAULIFLOWERS.—
Take large, ripe, full-blown cauliflowers. Remove the leaves and stalk, and divide the blossom into pieces or clusters of equal size. Throw them into a porcelain kettle of boiling water, (adding a little salt,) let them simmer, and skim them well. When they come to a boil, take them up with a perforated skimmer, and lay them on a sieve to drain. Put them into stone jars, (three parts full.) Season with mace and nutmeg infused in sufficient of the best cider vinegar, and simmer it for a quarter of an hour. When it comes to a boil take it off the fire, and pour it hot over the cauliflower in the jar, filling quite up to the top, and adding sweet oil at the last. Cover it while warm, and tie leather over the top. If you wish to have the cauliflowers yellow, boil with the vinegar some turmeric powder tied up in thin muslin. This is a very nice pickle.
Broccoli is done in the same manner, but should be previously greened by boiling it with vine leaves.
PICKLED BEETS WITH CABBAGE.—
Take a large fine red cabbage, wash it well, and drain it. Quarter it, (having removed the stalk) and slice it with a cabbage-cutter as for coldslaw. Boil some beets in the usual way till quite tender, (they require a very long time) and while warm peel and slice them in round pieces, or split them down, and cut them into long bits. Lay them in a large stone jar, alternately with layers of the shred cabbage, till the jar is more than half full. Have ready some scalding vinegar that has been boiled with a seasoning of blades of mace and sliced ginger root, and some nutmeg. Pour the vinegar, boiling hot, upon the cabbage and beet, till you have the jars quite full. Finish with a large table-spoonful of sweet oil. Cover the jar with leather, and put it away warm.
PICKLED CUCUMBERS.—
Take small young cucumbers, freshly gathered, and free from blemishes. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg, and let the cucumbers lie in it till they become yellow, stirring them down to the bottom twice a day. Then pour off all the brine, wash the cucumbers in cold water, and drain them. Lay a thick bed of fresh green vine leaves in the bottom and sides of a porcelain kettle. Put in the cucumbers, and pour on sufficient cold water to wet them all plentifully. Then cover them, closely, with more vine leaves, and pour on more water, packing the leaves well and pressing them down. Fill up to the top with water and vine leaves, and cover the kettle closely to keep in the steam. Hang it over a slow fire where there is no blaze, and keep it warm all night, but not hot. In the morning if the pickles are not a fine deep green, remove the vine leaves and replace them with a fresh supply. After this, they will be generally green enough; but if not, continue till they are. Then drain the cucumbers on a sieve, and transfer them to a very clean stone jar. To fifty cucumbers allow four quarts of excellent vinegar, and a bit of alum about the size of a large grain of corn, with half an ounce of mustard seed, half an ounce of mace, a broken-up nutmeg, and half an ounce of root ginger, sliced. Tie up the spice in three muslin bags, and boil them ten minutes in the vinegar. Then take out and lay them among the cucumbers in the jar; one to the bottom, one in the middle, and one at the top. Pour over them the vinegar boiling hot; add a table-spoonful of sweet oil, and cork the jar immediately, tying a leather over it. Keep wooden pickle spoons in the pantry for taking out pickles, and always be careful to close the jar immediately after.
You need not keep the bags of spice in the jars more than two or three weeks.