CAPER SAUCE.
Along these shores
Neglected trade with difficulty toils,
Collecting slender stores; the sun-dried grape,
Or capers from the rock, that prompt the taste
Of luxury.
Dyer.
To make a quarter of a pint, take a tablespoonful of capers and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. The present fashion of cutting capers is to mince one-third of them very fine, and divide the others in half; put them into a quarter of a pint of melted butter, or good thickened gravy; stir them the same way as you did the melted butter, or it will oil. Some boil and mince fine a few leaves of parsley or chevrel or tarragon, and add to the sauce; others, the juice of half a Seville orange or lemon.
VEGETABLES.
Grateful and salutary Spring! the plants
Which crown thy numerous gardens, and invite
To health and temperance, in the simple meal,
Unstain’d with murder, undefil’d with blood,
Unpoison’d with rich sauces, to provoke
The unwilling appetite to gluttony.
For this, the bulbous esculents their roots
With sweetness fill; for this, with cooling juice
The green herb spreads its leaves; and opening buds
And flowers and seeds with various flavors tempts
Th’ ensanguined palate from its savage feast.
Dodsley.
As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferred to the largest or smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of flavor, just before they are quite full grown. Freshness is their chief value and excellence, and I should as soon think of roasting an animal alive, as of boiling a vegetable after it is dead.
To boil them in soft water will preserve the color best of such as are green; if you have only hard water, put to it a teaspoonful of carbonate of potash.
Take care to wash and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and insects. This requires great attention.