The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life RationallyLoudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Cooking; Country life; Home economics
The following is the way of curing hams to give them the Westphalian
flavour. For two large hams, take one pound and a quarter of common
salt, two ounces and a half of saltpetre, three pounds of bay salt,
one pound and a half of brown sugar, and one quart of old beer; boil
them all together, and pour the mixture over the hams boiling hot. Turn
them and rub them well every day for sixteen days; then smoke them with
short horse-litter, and hang them up to dry.
The following is another mode of giving hams the Westphalian flavour,
and it is said to be excellent. For two hams weighing thirty pounds,
take one pound of common salt, half a pound of bay salt, three ounces
of saltpetre, and one ounce and a half of black pepper, the latter
ground, and finely sifted. Mix all these well together, and rub the
hams with the mixture for four days, turning them every day, and
having first washed them well with vinegar. On the fifth day, pour
over the hams two pounds of treacle, and rub them well with two ounces
of juniper berries bruised. Let them remain in this pickle six weeks,
turning and rubbing them daily; then take them out of the pickle, and
lay them in spring water for four-and-twenty hours; then wipe them dry
and send them to a chimney where wood is burnt. When thoroughly smoked,
take them down and put them in a chest with wood ashes. I may here
observe that, when hams are cured in any ordinary way, it is said that
the Westphalian flavour may be given to them by rubbing over them three
table-spoonfuls of a mixture of tar and spirits of wine, when they are
just taken out of the pickle.
The following is a mode of making _Mutton hams_, which some persons
are very fond of, though they are too strong for delicate stomachs.
Cut a hind quarter of mutton like a ham, and rub it with one ounce of
saltpetre, one pound of sugar, and one pound of salt. Lay it in a pan,
with the skin downwards for a fortnight, then roll it in bran, and hang
it up to dry.
In some places there is no regular larder, but the uncooked meat is
kept in a hanging _Safe_ in the open air, which is drawn up and down
by a pulley. Cooked meat is either kept in a similar safe, in a fixed
safe, in a separate room called a dry larder, or on a table in the
centre of the common or wet larder; but, in the latter case, every dish
should be covered with a wire-cloth cover to keep off the flies. In
many places the salting-room is apart from the larder, and this is a
great improvement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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