TO PREPARE APPLES FOR PIES.
540. Pare and core your apples, cut them in slices, and throw them into cold water. Then take them out of the water, put them into a stew-pan; if the apples are tender, the water which adheres to them will be sufficient to cook them; if not, a little more may be added. Cover the stew-pan, and place them near the fire. Let them stew till they are soft and burst; then mash them, and add half an ounce of butter to each pint of the stewed apple. When they get nearly cold, add sugar, rose-water, and nutmeg to the taste.
TO CURE DRIED BEEF.
541. For one hundred pounds of beef:
Seven pounds of coarse salt,
Five pounds of brown sugar,
Half an ounce of pearl-ash, two ounces of saltpetre. Four gallons of water.
Boil the sugar, salt, pearl-ash, saltpetre and water together, skim it and pour it over the meat when it is cold. At the end of three weeks take out your beef. This is the celebrated Newbold receipt.
TO CURE BEEF AND HAMS.
542. Half a bushel of fine salt,
Half a pound of saltpetre,
Half a gallon of molasses.
Mix the salt, saltpetre, and molasses together well with your hands, until the mixture resembles brown sugar.
Rub the meat well with this mixture, then place it in your tubs, with the fleshy side up; it should have a coating of the salt, &c., at least half an inch thick. At the end of ten days, or two weeks at farthest, take out your beef, and hang it in a dry place. Hams should remain in the salt from five to six weeks.
Never smoke beef. Hams would be better if not smoked.