The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

The strongest vinegar must be used for pickling. It must not be boiled, as thereby the strength of the vinegar and spices will be evaporated. By parboiling the pickles in brine, they will be ready in half the time they would otherwise be. When taken out of the hot brine, let them get cold and quite dry before you put them into the pickle.

The articles to be pickled should be perforated with a larding pin, in several places, by which means they will the more readily imbibe the flavour of the pickle.

The spices, &c. generally used, are those mentioned in the following receipt for walnuts.

118. TO PICKLE WALNUTS.

Make a brine of salt and water, with a quarter of a pound of salt to a quart of water. Soak the walnuts in this for a week, and if you wish to have them ready the sooner, run a larding pin through them, in half a dozen places, which will make them much softer and better flavoured. Put them into a stew-pan with the brine, and give them a gentle simmer. Lay them on a sieve to drain, then put them on a fish plate in the open air, a couple of days, or till they turn black. Put them into unglazed or stone jars, about three parts full, and fill up the jars with the following pickle;[13] and when they have been done about a week, open them and fill them up again, and so on continually, or else they will be spoiled.

119. ONIONS.

Put a sufficient quantity into salt and water for nine days, observing to change the water every day; next put them into jars and pour fresh boiling salt and water over them, cover them close up till they are cold, then make a second decoction of salt and water, and pour it on boiling. When it is cold drain the onions on a hair sieve, and put them into wide-mouthed bottles; fill them up with distilled vinegar; put into every bottle a slice or two of ginger, a blade of mace, and a tea-spoonful of sweet oil, which will keep the onions white. Cork them well up, and keep them in a dry place.

120. SAUR KRAUT.

Take a large strong wooden vessel, or cask, resembling a salt-beef cask, and capable of containing as much as is sufficient for the winter’s consumption of a family. Gradually break down or chop the cabbages (deprived of outside green leaves,) into very small pieces; begin with one or two cabbages at the bottom of the cask, and add others at intervals, pressing them by means of a wooden spade, against the side of the cask, until it is full. Then place a heavy weight upon the top of it, and allow it to stand near to a warm place, for four or five days. By this time it will have undergone fermentation, and be ready for use. Whilst the cabbages are passing through the process of fermentation, a very disagreeable fetid, acid smell is exhaled from them; now remove the cask to a cool situation, and keep it always covered up. Strew aniseeds among the layers of the cabbage during its preparation, which communicates a peculiar flavour to the Saur Kraut at an after period.

In boiling it for the table, two hours is the period for it to be on the fire. It forms an excellent nutritious and antiscorbutic food for winter use.