To pot Cheese.—A pleasant form of potted food is made by pounding together in a mortar a pound of cheese, three ounces of quite fresh butter, and half a table-spoonful each of castor sugar and made mustard. This mixture should be packed in jars, covered with clarified butter, and securely covered. It should not be kept longer than a fortnight.
PICKLING MEAT
IN pickling or salting meat, it is better to let the fresh joint first hang for two or three days untouched. This will make the meat more tender. Before salting it, be careful to remove every pipe or kernel in the meat, and fill up all holes with salt. Do not attempt to pickle meat in very cold frosty weather, or in warm damp weather. It is a good plan to sprinkle the meat with water and then to hang it up for a few hours before salting it: this cleanses it from any blood, and makes the flavour more delicate.
A good brine, sufficient for twenty pounds of beef, is made by mixing together three pounds of salt, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and two ounces of saltpetre. Boil these ingredients together for twenty minutes in two gallons of water, skimming off all scum. Let the liquid get quite cold before you pour it over the meat, and see that the joint is thoroughly covered with the brine. For a smaller piece of meat the quantities given for the brine can be easily reduced, following the same proportions carefully. The meat must be turned over every day, and well basted with the brine; and the salting pan or tub must be covered with a clean piece of tamis-cloth, or other porous woollen material. The meat will be ready for use in a fortnight.
In cooking pickled or salted meat, two things must be recollected. First, that, in order to make salted meat tender, it must be put into cold water when first placed on the fire. Secondly, that it is next to impossible to cook salted meat too slowly.
Spiced Round of Beef.—Procure a round of beef weighing from thirty-five to forty pounds; remove the bone, and lay the beef in a stone pan. Well rub into the meat all over (not omitting the sides of the round as well as the top and bottom) a mixture made of four pounds of salt, two pounds of coarse brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella from the chemist. Turn the beef every day, and well rub into it the brine which it makes. Let it remain in pickle for one month. When ready for cooking, let the beef be closely bound into shape with coarse webbing. Lay it in a large kettle or pot, and cover the beef with broth as cold as it can be to remain liquid. Add plenty of rough vegetables, such as carrots, turnips, onions, and celery, all sliced. Dry in the oven a sufficient quantity of ginger, cloves, mace, and peppercorns to make two ounces of each when dried and pounded fine in a mortar. Add these to the beef. Bring the broth slowly to a very gentle boil, and then keep it simmering very gently for twelve hours, turning the beef over at the end of six hours. It must on no account be allowed to boil, or it will be hard and tasteless. Remove the kettle from the fire, but let the beef remain in it for two days, when it will have become perfectly cold and firm. Take off the webbing, and the beef will be ready for eating.