If for boiling any liquid, the first way is best. When whites of eggs are used for jelly, or other purposes, contrive to have pudding, custards, &c., to employ the yolks also.
Gravies or soups put by, should be daily changed into fresh scalded pans.
If chocolate, coffee, jelly, gruel, bark, &c., be suffered to boil over, the strength is lost.
The cook should be charged to take care of jelly bags, tapes for the collared things, &c., which, if not perfectly scalded and kept dry, give an unpleasant flavor when next used.
Hard water spoils the color of vegetables; a pinch of pearlash or salt of wormwood will prevent that effect.
When sirloins of beef, loins of veal or mutton come in, part of the suet may be cut off for puddings, or to clarify; dripping will baste everything as well as butter, fowls and game excepted; and for kitchen pies nothing else should be used.
Meat and vegetables that the frost has touched should be soaked in cold water two or three hours before they are used, or more if much iced; when put into hot water, or to the fire until thawed, no heat will dress them properly.
Meat should be well examined when it comes in, in warm weather. In the height of the summer it is a very safe way to let meat that is to be salted lie an hour in cold water; then wipe it perfectly dry, and have ready salt, and rub it thoroughly into every part, leaving a handful over it besides. Turn it every day and rub the pickle in, which will make it ready for the table in three or four days; if it is desired to be very much corned, wrap it in a well-floured cloth, having rubbed it previously with salt. The latter method will corn fresh beef fit for table the day it comes in; but it must be put into the pot when the water boils.
If the weather permits, meat eats much better for hanging two or three days before it be salted.
The water in which meat has been boiled makes an excellent soup for the poor, when vegetables, oatmeal, or peas are added, and should not be cleared from the fat. Roast beef bones, or shank bones of ham, make fine peas soup, and should be boiled with the peas the day before eaten, that the fat may be removed. The mistress of the house will find many great advantages in visiting her larder daily before she orders the bill of fare; she will see what things require dressing, and thereby guard against their being spoiled. Many articles may be redressed in a different form from that in which they are first served, an improve the appearance of the table without increasing the expense.