Get those of about four inches long, and an inch in diameter, the crude half-grown little gherkins usually pickled are good for nothing. Put them into (unglazed) stone pans; cover them with a brine of salt and water, made with a quarter of a pound of salt to a quart of water; cover them down; set them on the earth before the fire for two or three days till they begin to turn yellow; then put away the water, and cover them with hot vinegar; set them again before the fire; keep them hot till they become green (this will take eight or ten days); then pour off the vinegar, having ready to cover them a pickle of fresh vinegar, &c., the same as directed in the preceding receipt for walnuts (leaving out the eschalots); cover them with a bung, bladder, and leather. Read the observations on pickles, p. 487.
Obs.—The vinegar the gherkins were greened in will make excellent salad sauce, or for cold meats. It is, in fact, superlative cucumber vinegar.
French Beans—Nasturtiums, &c.—(No. 118.)
When young, and most other small green vegetables, may be pickled the same way as gherkins.
Beet Roots.—(No. 119.)
Boil gently till they are full three parts done (this will take from an hour and a half to two and a half); then take them out, and when a little cooled, peel them, and cut them in slices about half an inch thick. Have ready a pickle for it, made by adding to each a quart of vinegar an ounce of ground black pepper, half an ounce of ginger pounded, same of salt, and of horseradish cut in thin slices; and you may warm it, if you like, with a few capsicums, or a little Cayenne; put these ingredients into a jar; stop it close, and let them steep three days on a trivet by the side of the fire; then, when cold, pour the clear liquor on the beet-root, which have previously arranged in a jar.
Red Cabbage.—(No. 120.)
Get a fine purple cabbage, take off the outside leaves, quarter it, take out the stalk, shred the leaves into a colander, sprinkle them with salt, let them remain till the morrow, drain them dry, put them into a jar, and cover them with the pickle for beet roots.
Onions.—(No. 121.)
The small round silver button onions, about as big as a nutmeg, make a very nice pickle. Take off their top coats, have ready a stew-pan, three parts filled with boiling water, into which put as many onions as will cover the top: as soon as they look clear, immediately take them up with a spoon full of holes, and lay them on a cloth three times folded, and cover them with another till you have ready as many as you wish: when they are quite dry, put them into jars, and cover them with hot pickle, made by infusing an ounce of horseradish, same of allspice, and same of black pepper, and same of salt, in a quart of best white-wine vinegar, in a stone jar, on a trivet by the side of the fire for three days, keeping it well closed; when cold, bung them down tight, and cover them with bladder wetted with the pickle and leather.