[Curling & Salting Meats Contents]
SALTING meat requires particular attention, and it must be observed as an invariable rule, that when meats are not completely covered with pickle they must be daily turned and rubbed, and that saltpetre has a tendency to harden all meats, while prunella every way answers the same purpose without producing that effect. Beef or pork may be prepared for eating in one day, equally well salted as if it had lain four days in pickle, thus: Take a piece of six or eight pounds, rub it well all over with salt, dip a cloth in water, wring it out and dust it well with flour, put the meat into it and tie it firmly; when the water boils put it in, and give it the usual time of boiling, when you will find it well corned.
Beef and Pork
Should be sprinkled with salt, and after lying a few hours hung up, when a quantity of blood will drop away; this is a very needful precaution, as meat will not keep unless well bled; it should then be well rubbed with salt, turned and rubbed daily till enough. A trough, tub, or lead, with a close cover, is generally used. The pickle, when boiled and skimmed, will serve again.
Scarlet Beef.
Make a compound with eight ounces raw sugar, eight ounces bay, and two pounds common salt, with two ounces salt prunella, all finely pounded; take a breast or brisket of good ox beef, or that part of the loin or flank which has least bones or the round or end of a hookbone; sprinkle it with salt and hang it up all night to drip; rub it well with the compound, to which may be added a few grains of cochineal to heighten the colour. Rub and turn it daily for eight days, when it will be ready for use; it eats well when boiled with а greens or roots.
Or,
After letting it remain fourteen days in the pickle, drain it; some people like a few cloves stuck into it while pickling to give it a flavour, and a small quantity of raw sugar. When the pickle is all dropped from it, it should be smoked for a few days.
When used as Dutch beef and grated, boil a lean piece very tender, and while hot put it under a press; when cold, keep it wrapt up in fine paper, and it will keep a month ready for serving on bread and butter.
Method of Salting Beef as adopted by the late Empress of Russia.
Boil together over a slow fire six pounds common salt, two pounds lump sugar pounded, three ounces saltprunella, with three gallons water. Carefully skim it while boiling. After draining the meat from the blood by rubbing it with salt, and then hanging every part of it up, pour the pickle cold over it. The advantage of this pickle is, that it will keep the meat for many months, and the hardest and toughest meat will be thus rendered as mellow and tender as the flesh of a young fowl. It also imparts a delicate flavour to the meat.
Young pork will be ready for use in three or four days; hams intended for drying may remain fourteen days before they are hung up; they should be well rubbed with pollard (fine brawn) and tied up in paper, to prevent flies getting at them. When the pickle is used a second time, boil it up with a proper addition of the compound to the quantity wanted.
The Dutch way.
Take lean beef, rub it with molasses, or brown sugar, turning it frequently; after three days wipe and salt it with pounded saltprunella and salt, rub it well into the meat, turn it daily for fourteen days, then roll it tight up into a coarse cloth; put it under a cheese press for a night, then hang it in wood smoke and turn it upside down every day; boil it in a cloth, and press it. It will grate or cut like Dutch beef.
Hunter’s Beef, or Beef Ham.
For a round of beef about twenty pounds, take three ounces saltprunella, three ounces raw sugar, a quarter of an ounce cloves, one nutmeg, two ounces ginger, eight ounces bay salt, half an ounce white pepper, all finely pounded; salt the beef a little and let it hang a day or so to drain the blood from it, then rub the compound well into it, turn and rub it every day for three weeks. When to be dress0ed, wash it in water to remove the spiceries, bind it tightly round with a cord, or tape, and boil it; or, put it into a pan with four gills of water, strew the meat with suet shred small, cover the top with a thick brown crust and tie paper over it; bake it five or six hours, when cold take off the crust and paper; the gravy is valuable and should be carefully preserved, as a little of it adds greatly to the flavour of soups, hashes, made dishes, &c.
Irish Beef.
To a piece of ten pounds, mix and pound a quarter of an ounce each of allspice, nutmeg, mace, cloves, pepper, and saltprunella, with one pound common salt; rub it well and proceed as already directed for scarlet beef. After lying four weeks in the pickle, take it out and cut out the bones; boil it in the same pickle it lay in, with the addition of as much water as will cover it well.
Pickled Beef to use in Fourteen Days.
Take the three ribs, or nine holes, of beef, season it well with a portion of the spiceries ordered above, with the addition of salt, garlic, and thyme; rub it well into the meat, cover it with vinegar, turn it daily for fourteen days; bone the meat and boil it in the liquor, adding more vinegar if necessary.
Beef Ham, or a Round of Beef,
Should be carefully salted; one of twenty pounds requires to be rubbed with a compound made thus: Two ounces an a half saltprunella, three ounces brown sugar, eight ounces bay salt, an ounce white pepper, to a quarter of an ounce each cloves and nutmeg, all finely pounded and well rubbed into it, then covered over with common salt; let it lie twenty days, turning it daily, then hang it up; or when it has lain fourteen days it may be boiled. When allowed to remain in the liquor it is boiled in until cold, and served up in slices, it is far more juicy and delicate. In Scotland, this is termed a Red Rump.
Mutton Hams.
Chuse them of wether mutton, newly killed, fat and finely grained, about fourteen pounds weight, the quantity of compound in the last receipt will be sufficient for three; warm it in a pan, then rub them well, and proceed in like manner. At the end of fifteen days hang them up; or rub them over with brawn and smoke them with wood eight days. Ham in slices, fried with egg, is a dish very much liked.
Pork Hams.
Rub them well with a compound of one pound common, two pounds bay salt, and three ounces saltprunella, all finely pounded, and, if you incline, spiceries as in the former receipt; open the ham a little at the shank, which stuff hard and tie with a cord, to shut out the air; lay them in a trough, rub and turn them daily three days, pour off the brine, and rub it with common salt, turning it daily and pouring out any brine which may collect; after twenty days press and hang them up; or, after lying three days in the compound make a very strong pickle with salt and water, to which add the pickle in the trough; boil and skim it, and when cold put in the hams, turn them daily three weeks, then hang them in wood or turf smoke till dry.
Mock Brawn,
Is made with the head and loin of young pork, rub them three days with the compound as in the former receipts; split the head, boil it and the lain till nearly tender, take out all the bones, take the meat of four cow heels boiled tender, cut them and the meat of the head in pieces, lay them on the loin, roll it tight up into a sheet of tin and boil it four hours; when ready, set it on end within a dish to drain; place a round piece of slate within the tin on the top, lay on a heavy weight to press it down; next day take it out of the case, bind it with a fillet, lay it in a sousing liquor made with salt and water boiled with some wheat brawn.
Tongues.
Clean them well, dry and rub them with common salt and a little saltprunella; lay them in a trough, turn and rub them daily for three days, lay them upon a board that the pickle may run from them; then make a compound with a pound of common and four ounces bay salt, an ounce saltprunella, and two ounces raw sugar, taking a quantity proportioned to the number of tongues; put a good layer of common salt at the bottom of a barrel, pack in the tongues, then a layer of the compound and tongues alternately, till nearly full; place a board over and weights to keep them down, add more salt till the brine covers them. After sixteen days they will be ready for use; some may be taken out and dried.
Pickled Salmon.
To six pounds salmon, take half a bottle port wine, a quart (choppin) vinegar, with salt, pepper, and pimento, to your taste; cut the salmon in slices, put it in a saucepan, pour over the liquor and spiceries, and boil it twelve minutes; lift out the fish when cold, put it in a jar, pour the liquor over it and tie it close; it will keep six months.
Another way.
After the salmon is prepared, that is, cleaned, scaled, and split, divide it in cuts from two to four pounds each; lay as many as will cover the bottom of a large kettle, pour on water to cover it well; to one gallon water put three pints (mutchkins) strong vinegar and plenty of salt (if a small quantity is pickling, if you chuse you may add spiceries.) When the salmon is boiled, lift it carefully out, lay it on sieves to drain and cool, and proceed to boil more; boil the liquor till it be strong, add more vinegar and salt to your taste, and run it through a sieve; when quite cold, pack the salmon in small casks or cans, head the casks, fill them with the pickle and stop them close; if cans fill them with the pickle and tie them over with bladders and leather to keep out the air.
Oysters.
Procure the largest oysters, wash them clean from the shells and grit by shaking them one by one in their own liquor with a pair of small tongs; strain the liquor and put it with the oysters on the fire, skim carefully as the froth rises. English oysters require from fifteen to twenty minutes, and the Scots eight or ten, if they are to be long kept; they should only simmer. Take a pint of the liquor, half an ounce cloves, half an ounce white pepper whole, one nutmeg, scalded and cut in slices, or a quarter of an ounce mace, and a spoonful of salt; one half of the spiceries will serve for Scots oysters; boil them ten minutes, then put in the oysters and stir them well through; put the oysters in barrels or jars, and pour over them as much of the liquor as will fill them, let them stand twenty-four hours in a cold place, then head the barrels; or, if jars, tie them close with bladders and leather. Cockles are done in like manner.
Mussels.
Shake them free of grit, &c. in their liquor, strain it, put it on with the mussels, let them boil four minutes, skimming quite clean; throw them into jars and season to your taste with ground pepper; if you chuse add spiceries. They are very excellent the first two days, but lose their richness by the third.
To Dress Large White Buckies [Whelks].
This is one of the most delicate of shell fish; yet, from its snail-like appearance, the most neglected or disliked; it resembles in taste the tail of a lobster, with this distinction, that buckies are a delicate gristle. Get buckies newly fished, lay them in fresh water an hour, rinse them well, throw them in a large kettle of boiling water; boil them twenty minutes, or half an hour, then, with a wire or large pin, pick them out of the shells and throw them in cold water, squirting them through your hands to take off the tails; pull off the bonnets, or top, wash them again in salt and water, and they will be perfectly clean; sprinkle a little salt over them, put them into a jar with a few spoonfuls of water. If their shape offends cut them in pieces; serve with vinegar and pepper; they eat most delicately the day they are drest.
☛ Sprats to imitate Anchovies, see p. 239.
☛ Caveach, or Pickled Mackarel, see p. 240.
To Salt Butter.
After the butter is well washed, and every particle of the milk expressed, for every pound of butter take one ounce of the following composition; two parts of common salt, one half part sugar, and one half part saltprenella, pounded very fine; work it well into the butter, pack it very close into cans, or kitts, which ought to be perfectly clean, and free from taste or smell of the last butter. In six weeks it may be used, and will, on trial, be found very fine. To preserve butter kits sweet from year to year, they should, as soon as empty, be well scalded and cleaned, exposed a day to the air, filled with pickle, the heads put on, and set it in a dry place till the time of filling again.
To keep Green Peas.
Gather them when young, and on a dry day, shell and throw them into a pan of boiling water, let them boil a little, throw them in a sieve to drain, spread them on cloths two or three times doubled to dry; when thoroughly cold have ready clean dry bottles, fill them to the neck with the peas, then pour in melted suet and cork them well, tie them over with leather or bladders, and dip them into melted wax; bury them in the earth, or place them in an ice-house.
When they are to be used, have ready a pan with water boiling, put in a piece of butter and some sugar, then throw in the peas, and when they are boiled throw them into a sieve to drain; beat a good piece of butter in a saucepan with a little pepper and salt, give them a gentle shake or two in it, turn them into a dish and serve hot.
To keep Gooseberries.
Gather them when dry, put them in clean dry bottles well corked and the necks dipped in melted rosin or wax to exclude air, then put them in pan of water up to the neck on a slow fire; when the water almost boils take them out, next day dig a hole in the earth, lay in the bottles and cover them up.
