MISCELLANEOUS RECEIPTS.
TEA.—
No metal (not even silver,) is good for tea-pots. All tea should be made in china or queensware. Wedgewood (whether black or white) imbibes much of the essence of the tea, and from constant use soon becomes unpleasant. Britannia ware is exceedingly unwholesome for any sort of cooking, as one fourth of the composition is copper. Block tin for a common tea-pot is less objectionable, and much cheaper. All tea-pots should, after using, be thoroughly emptied of the old leaves, and washed very clean in warm water, and set open in the sun and air for several hours. To make good tea, the tea itself, whether black or green, must be of excellent quality. There is no economy in buying that which is low-priced. Green tea, if fresh and good, and not adulterated will look green in the cup, and have a fragrant odor. If it draws red, or brown, or blackish, it is old or mixed with something wrong. Begin to make your tea about a quarter of an hour before it is wanted. Scald the tea-pot (twice over) with boiling water. Then put in the tea, allowing three heaping table-spoonfuls to each person, and a pint of water, actually boiling, when put in. Cover it closely with the lid, and set it by the fire for ten or fifteen minutes to infuse. After the first cups have gone round, put some fresh tea into the pot, and pour on it some more boiling water, that the second cups may be as strong as the first, having time to infuse. Weak tea for company is very mean. For those that like it so, have a small pot of water on the server. If the water is not boiling fast when poured on the tea, and is beginning to cool, the tea will be flat and insipid, and the leaves will float on the surface of the cups. There is then no remedy but to make some fresh.
COFFEE.—
To drink coffee in perfection, a sufficient quantity for breakfast should be roasted every morning, and ground hot, as it loses much of its strength by keeping even for a few hours. The best coffee roasters are iron cylinders, (standing on feet) with a door in one side, and a handle that turns the cylinder round towards the fire or from it, that the coffee may be equally done throughout. It must be roasted a bright brown color, and on no account black or burnt. When about half done, put in bits of fresh butter, allowing a table-spoonful to a pound of coffee. Previous to roasting pick the coffee carefully, throwing away the defective grains, and the stones or sand. Coffee should be ground while warm in a mill kept solely for that purpose, and fastened up against the kitchen wall.
For boiled coffee allow four ounces of ground coffee (or a quarter of a pound) to a quart of water. When the water boils, stir in the coffee. Give it one hard boil up. Then set it farther from the fire, and simmer it for ten minutes, adding the white of an egg, (including the egg shell,) or a small strip of isinglass. Pour out a large cup of the coffee, and then (holding it high above the coffee-pot,) pour it back again. Repeat this till wanted, and then set the coffee-pot beside the fire, (but not over it.) For company, allow six ounces of coffee to a quart of water. Keep the lid always on, but if when boiling hard it rises and seems inclined to run over, remove it instantly from the fire and set it back. Cream is indispensable to first-rate coffee; if not to be obtained sweet, substitute rich milk boiling hot. On no consideration fill up the coffee-pot with water. A percolator (to be had at the best tin stores) makes excellent coffee without boiling, if properly managed.