Take three or four handfuls of dry'd elder-flowers, and ten gallons of spring water, boil the water, and pour in scalding hot upon the flowers, the next day put to every gallon of water five pounds of Malaga raisins, the stalks being first pick'd off, but not wash'd, chop them grosly with a chopping knife, then put them into your boiled water, stir the water, raisins and flowers well together, and do so twice a day for twelve days, then press out the juice clear as long as you can get any liquor; put it into a barrel fit for it, stop it up two or three days till it works, and in a few days stop it up close, and let it stand two or three months, then bottle it.
439. To make PEARL BARLEY PUDDING.
Take half a pound of pearl barley, cree it in soft water, and shift it once or twice in the boiling till it be soft; take five eggs, put to them a pint of good cream, and half a pound of powder sugar, grate in half a nutmeg, a little salt, a spoonful or two of rose-water, and half a pound of clarified butter; when your barley is cold mix them altogether, so bake it with a puff-paste round your dish-edge.
Serve it up with a little rose-water, sugar and butter for your sauce.
440. To make Gooseberry Vinegar another Way.
Take gooseberries when they are full ripe, bruise them in a marble mortar or wooden bowl, and to every upheap'd half peck of berries take a gallon of water, put it to them in the barrel, let it stand in a warm place for two weeks, put a paper on the top of your barrel, then draw it off, wash out the barrel, put it in again, and to every gallon add a pound of coarse sugar; set it in a warm place by the fire, and let it stand whilst christmas.
441. To preserve APRICOCKS green.
Take apricocks when they are young and tender, coddle them a little, rub them with a coarse cloth to take off the skin, and throw them into water as you do them, and put them in the same water they were coddled in, cover them with vine leaves, a white paper, or something more at the top, the closer you keep them the sooner they are green; be sure you don't let them boil; when they are green weigh them, and to every pound of apricocks take a pound of loaf sugar, put it into a pan, and to every pound of sugar a jill of water, boil your sugar and water a little, and skim it, then put in your apricocks, let them boil together whilst your apricocks look clear, and your syrrup thick, skim it all the time it is boiling, and put them into a pot covered with a paper dip'd in brandy.
442. To make ORANGE CHIPS another Way.
Pare your oranges, not over thin but narrow, throw the rinds into fair water as you pare them off, then boil them therein very fast till they be tender, filling up the pan with boiling water as it wastes away, then make a thin syrrup with part of the water they are boiled in, put in the rinds, and just let them boil, then take them off, and let them lie in the syrrup three or four days, then boil them again till you find the syrrup begin to draw between your fingers, take them off from the fire and let them drain thro' your cullinder, take out but a few at a time, because if they cool too fast it will be difficult to get the syrrup from them, which must be done by passing every piece of peel through your fingers, and lying them single on a sieve with the rind uppermost, the sieve may be set in a stove, or before the fire; but in summer the sun is hot enough to dry them.