PICKLED ONIONS.—
Take the small silver-skinned white onions. Peel off the outer skin. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg, skim it well, and when it begins to cool pour it upon the onions. Let them stand in it (closely covered,) till quite cold. Then take them out, peel off another skin, and wash them through a cullender in cold water. Next, boil them in milk till tender all through, so that you can easily pierce them with a needle. Then drain off the milk. Measure them, and to a quart of onions allow a quart of the best cider vinegar. Boil in the vinegar two muslin bags tied up with broken-up nutmeg and mace. When it has boiled, pour it hot over the onions in the jar; having laid one bag of spice at the bottom, and one in the middle. The onions should fill two thirds of the jar, and the vinegar the remainder. Finish with a table-spoonful of salad oil, and cork the jar immediately, and tie on the leather cover.
As onions pickled this way are generally much liked, it is well, when doing them, to make several jars full.
Cucumber and Onion Pickle.—To a dozen fine cucumbers allow three large onions. Pare the cucumbers and peel the onions, and cut both into thick slices. Sprinkle salt and pepper over them, and let them rest till next day. Then drain them well, and put them into a stone jar. Pour boiling vinegar over them. Close the jar, and set it in a warm place. Next day repeat the boiling vinegar, and cork the jar. Next day repeat it again, with a bag of mace, nutmeg, and ginger, boiled in the vinegar. Then cork the jar, and tie it up. When the pickle is finished, divide it in small stone jars, with sweet oil on the top of each.
WALNUTS OR BUTTERNUTS PICKLED—
Gather them in early summer, when they are full-grown, but so tender that a large needle will easily pierce them all through. Rub off the outer skin with a coarse cloth, and then lay them in salt and water for a week, changing the brine every other day. Allow for this brine a small quarter of a pound of salt to a large quart of water. Make enough to cover all the nuts well. Place a large lid over the pan, and keep them closely from the air. The last day take them out of the brine, drain them, and prick every one quite through in several places with a large needle. Drain them again, spread them out on large flat dishes, and set them to blacken for two days in the hot sun. For a hundred nuts, allow a gallon of excellent cider vinegar, half an ounce of black pepper-corns, half an ounce of cloves, half an ounce of allspice, an ounce of root ginger, and an ounce of mace. Boil the spice in the vinegar for ten minutes, tied up in eight small muslin bags. Then take them out, and having divided the nuts in four stone jars, distribute among them, equally, the bags of spice, and pour on the vinegar hot, an equal portion in each jar. While warm, secure them with flat corks, and tie leather over them. Done this way, you may begin to use them in a week. If you have not enough of vinegar to fill the jars up to the top, add some cold, and strew among the nuts some blades of mace. Finish with a large spoonful of salad oil at the top of each jar.