The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory Part 88

_Lemon Water._

Take twelve of the largest lemons; slice and put them into a quart of white wine. Add of cinnamon and galingale, one quarter of an ounce each, of red rose-leaves, borage and bugloss flowers, one handful each, and of yellow sanders one dram. Steep all these together twelve hours; then distil them gently in a gla.s.s still. Put into the gla.s.s vessel in which it drops three ounces of fine white sugar and one grain of ambergris.

_Mead._ No. 1.

In six gallons of water dissolve fourteen pounds of honey; then add three or four eggs, with the whites; set it upon the fire, and let it boil half an hour. Put into it balm, sweet marjoram, and sweet briar, of each ten sprigs, half an ounce of cinnamon, the same of mace, twenty cloves, and half a race of ginger sliced very thin: let it boil a quarter of an hour; then take it off the fire, pour it into a tub, and let it remain till nearly cold. Take six ounces of syrup of citron, and one spoonful of ale yest; beat them well together, put it into the liquor, and let it stand till cold. Take a sufficient quant.i.ty of coa.r.s.e bread to cover the barrel, and bake it very hard; then take as much ale yest as will spread it over thin, put it into the liquor, and let it stand till it comes to a head. Strain it out; put the liquor into a cask, and add to it a quart of the best Rhenish wine. When it has done working, stop it up close, and let it stand a month; then draw it out into bottles; tie the corks down close; and let them stand a month.

_Mead._ No. 2.

Ten quarts of honey boiled one hour with thirty quarts of water; when cold, put it into a cask, and add to it one ounce of cinnamon, one of cloves, two of ginger, and two large nutmegs, to be pounded first, and suspended in a linen bag in the barrel from the bung-hole. The sc.u.m must be filtered through a flannel bag.

_Mead._ No. 3.

Take eight gallons of spring water, twelve pounds of honey, four pounds of powdered sugar; boil them for an hour, keeping it well skimmed. Let it stand all night; the next day, put it into your vessel, keeping back the sediment; hang in your vessel two or three lemon-peels; then stop it up close; in the summer, bottle it in six weeks.

_Mithridate Brandy._

Take four gallons of brandy; infuse a bushel of poppies twenty-four hours; then strain it, and put two ounces of nutmegs, the same of liquorice, and of pepper and ginger, and one ounce each of cinnamon, aniseed, juniper-berries, cloves, fennel-seed, and cardamom seed, two drachms of saffron, two pounds of figs sliced, and one pound of the sun raisins stoned. All these must be put into an earthen pot, and set in the sun three weeks; then strain it, and mix with it two ounces of Venice treacle, two ounces of mithridate, and four pounds of sugar. This is an approved remedy for the gout in the stomach.

_Nonpareil._

Pare six lemons very thin, put the rinds and juice into two quarts of brandy; let it remain well corked four days. Set on the fire three quarts of spring water and two pounds of sugar, and clarify it with two whites of eggs; let it boil a quarter of an hour; take the sc.u.m off, and let it stand till cold. Put it to your brandy; add two quarts of white wine, and strain it through a flannel bag; fill the cask, and it will clarify itself. You may bottle it in a week. Orange-peel greatly improves this liquor.

_Noyau._

To one gallon of the best white French brandy, or spirit diluted to the strength of brandy, put two pounds and a half of bitter almonds blanched, two pounds of white sugar-candy, half an ounce of mace, and two large nutmegs. To give it a red colour, add four pounds of black cherries. It must be well shaken every day for a fortnight; then let it stand for six weeks, and bottle it off: it improves much by longer keeping.

_Orange Juice._

One pound of fine sugar to a pint of juice; run it through a jelly-bag, and boil it for a quarter of an hour; when cold, skim and bottle it.

_Spirit of Oranges or Lemons._

Take the thickest rinded oranges or lemons; pare off the rinds very thin; put into a gla.s.s bottle as many of these chips as it will hold, and then as much Malaga sack as it will hold besides. Stop the bottle down close, and, when you use it, take about half a spoonful in a gla.s.s of sack. It is a fine spirit to mix in sauces for puddings or other sweet dishes.

_Cordial Orange Water._

Take one dozen and a half of the highest coloured and thick-rinded oranges; slice them, and put them into two pints of Malaga sack, and one pint of the best brandy. Take cinnamon, nutmegs, ginger, cloves, and mace, of each one quarter of an ounce bruised, and of spearmint and balm one handful of each; put them into an ordinary still all night, pasted up with rye paste. The next day, draw them with a slow fire, and keep a wet cloth upon the neck of the still; put the loaf sugar into the gla.s.s in which it drops.

_Orgeat._

Two quarts of new milk, one ounce of sweet almonds and eighteen bitter, a large piece of cinnamon, and fine sugar to your taste. Boil these a quarter of an hour, and then strain. The almonds must be blanched, and then pounded fine with orange-flower water.

_Another way._

Four ounces of sweet almonds finely pounded, two ounces of white sugar-candy, dissolved in spring-water, and a quart of cream; mix all together. Put it into a bottle, and give it a gentle shake when going to be used.

_Excellent Punch._

Three pints of barley-water and a piece of lemon-peel; let it stand till cold; then add the juice of six lemons and about half a pint of the best brandy, and sweeten it to your taste, and put it in ice for four hours.

Put into it a little champagne or Madeira.

_Milk Punch._

To twenty quarts of the best rum or brandy put the peels of thirty Seville oranges and thirty lemons, pared as thin as possible. Let them steep twelve hours. Strain the spirit from the rinds, and put to it thirty quarts of water, previously boiled and left to stand till cold.

Take fifteen pounds of double-refined sugar, and boil it in a proper proportion of the water to a fine clear syrup. As soon as it boils up, have ready beat to a froth the whites of six or eight eggs, and the sh.e.l.ls crumbled fine; mix them with the syrup; let them boil together, and, when a cap of sc.u.m rises to the top, take off the pot, and skim it perfectly clear. Then put it on again with some more of the beaten egg, and skim it again as before. Do the same with the remainder of the egg until it is quite free from dirt; let it stand to be cool. Strain it to the juice of the oranges and lemons; put it into a cask with the spirit; add a quart of new milk, made lukewarm; stir the whole well together, and bung up the cask. Let it stand till very fine, which will be in about a month or six weeks--but it is better to stand for six months--then bottle it. The cask should hold fifteen gallons. This punch will keep for many years.

Many persons think this punch made with brandy much finer than that with rum. The best time for making it is in March, when the fruit is in the highest perfection.

_Another way._

Take six quarts of good brandy, eight quarts of water, two pounds and a half of lump sugar, eighteen lemons, and one large wine-gla.s.sful of ratafia. Mix these well together; then throw in two quarts of boiling skimmed milk; stir it well, and let it stand half an hour; strain it through a very thick flannel bag till quite fine; then bottle it for use. Before you use this punch, soak for a night the rinds of eighteen lemons in some of the spirit; then take it out, and boil it in the milk, together with two large nutmegs sliced.

_Norfolk Punch._

Take four gallons of the best rum; pare a dozen lemons and a dozen oranges very thin; let the pulp of both steep in the rum twenty-four hours. Put twelve pounds of double-refined sugar into six gallons of water, with the whites of a dozen eggs beat to a froth; boil and sc.u.m it well; when cold, put it into the vessel with the rum, together with six quarts of orange-juice, and that of the dozen of lemons, and two quarts of new milk. Shake the vessel so as to mix it; stop it up very close, and let it stand two months before you bottle it.

This quant.i.ty makes twelve gallons of the Duke of Norfolk's punch. It is best made in March, as the fruit is then in the greatest perfection.

_Roman Punch._

The juice of ten lemons, and of two sweet oranges, the peel of an orange cut very thin, and two pounds of powdered loaf-sugar, mixed together.

Then take the white of ten eggs, beaten into froth. Pa.s.s the first mixture through a sieve, and then mix it by degrees, always beating with the froth of the eggs; put the whole into an ice-lead; let it freeze a little; then add to it two bottles of champagne, or rum. Turn it round with a ladle. The above is for twelve persons.

_Raspberry Liqueur._

Bruise some raspberries with the back of a spoon, strain them, and fill a bottle with the juice; stop it, but not very close. Add to a pound of fruit nearly a pound of sugar dissolved into a syrup. Let it stand four or five days; pour it from the fruit into a basin; add to it as much rich white wine as you think fit; bottle it, and in a month it will be fit to drink.

_Raspberry Vinegar._

Fill a jar with raspberries, gathered dry, and pour over them as much of the best white wine vinegar as will cover them. Let them remain for two or three days, stirring them frequently, to break them; strain the liquor through a sieve, and to every pint of it put a pound and a quarter of double-refined sugar; boil it, and take off the sc.u.m as it rises. When cool, bottle and cork it up for use. A spoonful of this liquor is sufficient for a small tumbler of water.