Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesLeslie, Eliza
General
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Leslie, Eliza
Cooking, American
This receipt for making butter is according to the method in use at the
best farm-houses in Pennsylvania, and if exactly followed will be found
very good. The badness of butter is generally owing to carelessness or
mismanagement; to keeping the cream too long without churning; to want
of cleanliness in the utensils; to not taking the trouble to work it
sufficiently; or to the practice of salting it so profusely as to
render it unpleasant to the taste, and unfit for cakes or pastry. All
these causes of bad butter are inexcusable, and can easily be avoided.
Unless the cows have been allowed to feed where there are bitter weeds
or garlic, the milk cannot naturally have any disagreeable taste, and
therefore the fault of the butter must be the fault of the maker. Of
course, the cream is much richer where the pasture is fine and
luxuriant; and in winter, when the cows have only dry food, the butter
must be consequently whiter and more insipid than in the grazing
season. Still, if properly made, even winter butter cannot taste badly.
Many economical housekeepers always buy for cooking, butter of inferior
quality. This is a foolish practice; as when it is bad, the taste will
predominate through all attempts to disguise it, and render every thing
unpalatable with which it is combined. As the use of butter is designed
to improve and not to spoil the flavour of cookery, it is better to
omit it altogether, and to substitute something else, unless you can
procure that which is good. Lard, suet, beef-drippings, and sweet oil,
may be used in the preparation of various dishes; and to eat with bread
or warm cakes, honey, molasses, or stewed fruit, &c, are far superior
to bad butter.
CHEESE.
In making good cheese, skim milk is never used. The milk should either
be warm from the cow or heated to that temperature over the fire. When
the rennet is put in, the heat of the milk should be from 90 to 96
degrees. Three quarts of milk will yield, on an average, about a pound
of cheese. In infusing the rennet, allow a quart of lukewarm water, and
a table-spoonful of salt to a piece about half the size of your hand.
The rennet must soak all night in the water before it can be fit for
use. In the morning (after taking as much of it as you want) put the
rennet water into a bottle and cork it tightly. It will keep the better
for adding to it a wine glass of brandy. If too large a proportion of
rennet is mixed with the milk, the cheese will be tough and leathery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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