Another way.
Take a piece of brisket of beef, about sixteen or eighteen pounds; make the pickle for it as follows:—saltpetre and bay salt, one pound and a half of each, one pound of coarse brown sugar, and six pounds of common salt; add to these three gallons of water. Set it on the fire and keep it stirring, lest the salts should burn; as it boils skim it well till clear: boil it about an hour and a half. When it is quite cold, put in the beef, and let it lie in a pan that will hold it properly; turn it every day, and let it remain in about a fortnight. Take it out, and just wash it in clean water, and put it into the pot in which you stew it with some weak broth; then add slices of fat bacon, fat of veal, any pieces of fat meat, the more fat the better, especially of veal, also a pint of brandy, a full pint of wine, a handful of bay-leaves, a few cloves, and some blades of mace, about two large carrots, one dozen of large onions, a good bundle of sweet-herbs, some parsley, and two or three turnips. Stew it exceedingly gently for eight hours. The broth should cover the meat while it is stewing, and keep the slices of fat as much over it as you can; the seldomer you uncover the pot the better. When you think it sufficiently tender, which try with your finger, take it off, and, though it may appear tender enough to fall to pieces, it will harden sufficiently when it grows cold. It should remain in the pot just as it is taken off the fire till it is very nearly if not quite cold. It will eat much better for being so left, and you will also not run the risk of breaking the beef in pieces, as you would by removing it whilst hot.
Collar of Beef.
Bone the navel and navel round; make sufficient pickle to cover it, as strong as to bear an egg, with bay salt; beat two ounces of saltpetre very fine, and strew half of it on your beef before you lay it in your pickle. Then lay it in an earthen pan, and press it down in the liquor with a weight, as it must be all covered. Let it remain thus for four or five days, stirring it however once every day. Take it out, let the brine drain from it, lay it on a table, and season it with nutmeg, pepper, cloves, and mace, some parsley, thyme, and sweet marjoram, of each a little, and eight anchovies sliced; roll it up with these like brawn, and bind it quite fast with strong tape. Then put it into a pan, deep enough for it to stand upright; fill the pan with water, and cover it with paste. Make your oven very hot, put it in, and let it remain there five or six hours; then take it out, and, having removed the tape, roll it in a cloth; hang it up till cold. If you think it not salt enough, before you bake it, put a little salt with your spice and herbs, for baking in water abates much of its saltness.
Another.
Salt a flank of beef with white salt, and let it lie for forty-eight hours. Wash it, and hang it in the wind to dry for twenty-four hours. Then take pepper, salt, cloves, saltpetre, all beaten fine, and mix them together; rub the beef all over; roll it up hard, and tie it fast with tape. Put it in a pan, with a few bay-leaves, and four pounds of butter. Cover the pot with rye paste, and bake it with household bread.
Bisquet, to make.
Cut some slips of white paper; butter and place them at the bottom and sides of the pan you make your bisquet in; then cut thin collops of veal, or whatever meat you make it of; lay them on the paper, and cover them with forcemeat. Put in anything else you like, carrots, &c.; close the top with forcemeat and veal, and paper again; put it in the oven or stove, and, when done, and you want to dish it, turn the pan upside down from the dish; take the paper off, and pour good gravy on it.
Boar’s Head, to dress whole.
When the head is cut off, the neck part must be boned, and the tongue taken out. The brains also must be taken out on the inside, so as not to break the bone and skin on the outside. When boned, singe the hair off, and clean it; then put it for four or five days into a red pickle made of saltpetre, bay salt, common salt, and coarse brown sugar, rubbing the pickle in every day. When taken out of the pickle, lay the tongue in the centre of the neck or collar; close the meat together as close as you can, and bind it with strong tape up to the ears, the same as you would do brawn; then put it into a pot or kettle, the neck downward, and fill the pot with good broth and Rhenish wine, in the proportion of one bottle of wine to three pints of broth, till it is covered a little above the ears. Season the wine and broth with small bunches of sweet-herbs, such as basil, winter savory, and marjoram, bay-leaves, shalots, celery, carrots, turnips, parsley-roots, with different kinds of spices. Set it over the fire to boil; when it boils, put it on one side to boil gently, till the head is tender. Take it out of the liquor, and put it into an earthen pan; skim all the fat off the liquor; strain it through a sieve into the head; put it by until it is quite cold, and then it will be fit for use.