AN EXCELLENT AND WHOLESOME WATER-GRUEL WITH WOOD-SORREL AND CURRANTS
Into a Possnet of two quarts of water, besides the due proportion of beaten Oat-meal, put two handfuls of Wood-sorrel a little-chopped and bruised, and a good quantity of picked and washed currants, tyed loosly in a thin stuff bag (as a bolter cloth). Boil these very well together, seasoning the Composition in due time, with Salt, Nutmeg, Mace, or what else you please, as Rosemary &c. when it is sufficiently boiled, strain the Oat-meal, and press out all the juyce and humidity of the Currants and Herbs, throwing away the insipid husks; and season it with Sugar and Butter; and to each Porrenger-ful two spoonfuls of Rhenish-wine and the yolk of an Egg.
THE QUEENS BARLEY-CREAM
You must make a good barley-water, throwing away the three first waters as soon as they boil; which will take up about three quarters of an hour. Then you boil a large quantity of water with the Barley (which thus prepared makes the water no more Red or Russet) during an hours space or more; (that it may be strong of the Barley; perle-Barley is best,) towards the latter end put in the Pullet flead, and the legs cut off; If it should boil too long, the emulsion would taste too fleshy. When it is enough, let the broth run clear from the Barley and pullet, and beat the Almonds with the broth, and strain them from it. Then sweeten it with Sugar. This is to make at least two English quarts of Emulsion. I should like to put some pulp of Barley, boiled by it self, to strain with the Almond-Milk, and, if you will, some Melon seeds. You may put some juyce of Limon or Orange to it. Also season it with Cinnamon, and make the broth stronger of the flesh.
The Queens white Potage is made only of the white flesh of Capon beaten with good broth and strained, and a little juyce of Limon or Orange; but no Almonds.
PRESSIS NOURISSANT
The Queen Mothers Pressis was thus made. Take un Gigot of Mutton, a piece of Veal, and a Capon (or half the quantity of each of these) and put them to rost with convenient fire, till they are above half rosted, or rather, till they be two thirds rosted. Then take them off, and squeese out all their juyce in a press with screws, and scum all the fat from it, and put it between two dishes upon a Chafing-dish of Coals to boil a very little, or rather but to heat well; for by then it is through hot, the juyce will be ripened enough to drink, whereas before it was raw and bloody; then if you perceive any fat to remain and swim upon it, clense it away with a Feather. Squeese the juyce of an Orange (through a holed spoon) into half a Porrenger full of this, and add a little Salt, and drink it. The Queen used this at nights in stead of a Supper; for when she took this, she did eat nothing else. It is of great, yet temperate nourishment. If you take a couple of Partridges in stead of a Capon, it will be of more nourishment, but hotter. Great weaknesses and Consumptions have been recovered with long use of this, and strength and long life continued notably. It is good to take two or three spoonfuls of it in a good ordinary bouillon. I should like better the boiling the same things in a close flagon in bulliente Balneo, as my Lady Kent, and My Mother used.
BROTH AND POTAGE
Mounsieur de Bourdeaux used to take a mornings a broth, thus made. Make a very good broth (so as to gelly, when it is cold), a lean piece of a leg of Veal, the Crag-end of a neck of Mutton, and a Pullet, seasoning it with a little Salt, Cloves and Pepper to your mind. Beat some of it with a handful of blanched Almonds and twenty husked-seeds of Citron and strain it to the whole; put Sugar to it, and so drink it as an Emulsion.