The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened Part 19

Bake it in a strong oven eight or ten hours. Take it out of the oven, and the meat out of the pot, which make clean, from all settlings; and squeese all the juyce from it (even by a gentle press.) Then put it in again hard pressed into the pot. Clarifie the b.u.t.ter, that you poured with the Liquor from the meat out of the pot; and pour it again with more flesh, to have enough to cover it two or three fingers thick.

TO BAKE PIDGEONS, (WHICH ARE THUS EXCELLENT, AND WILL KEEP A QUARTER OF A YEAR) OR TEALS, OR WILD-DUCKS

Season them duly with Pepper and Salt; then lay them in the pot, and put store of b.u.t.ter, and some Claret-wine to them. Cover and bake as above: but a less while according to the tenderness of the meat. In due time take out your pot, and your birds out of it, which press not, but only wipe off the Liquor. Pour it out all. Clarifie the b.u.t.ter; put in the birds again, and the clarified b.u.t.ter, and as much more as needs (all melted) upon them, and let it cool. You may put a few Bay-leaves upon any of these baked meats, between the meat and the b.u.t.ter.

GREEN-GEESE-PYE

An excellent cold Pye is thus made. Take two fat Green-geese; bone them, and lay them in paste one upon the other, seasoning them well with Pepper and Salt, and some little Nutmeg, both above and below and between the two Geese. When it is well-baked and out of the oven, pour in melted b.u.t.ter at a hole made in the top. The crust is much better than of a Stubble-goose.

TO BOIL BEEF OR VENISON TENDER AND SAVOURY

The way to have Beef tenderest, short and best boiled, as my Lord of Saint Alban's useth it, is thus. Take a rump or brisket of beef; keep it without salt as long as you may, without danger to have it smell ill. For so it groweth mellow and tender, which it would not do, if it were presently salted. When it is sufficiently mortified, rub it well with Salt; let it lie so but a day and a night, or at most two nights and a day. Then boil it in no more water then is necessary. Boil it pretty smartly at first, but afterwards but a simpring or stewing boiling, which must continue seven or eight hours. Sometimes he boileth it half over night, and the rest next morning. If you should not have time to Salt it, you may supply that want thus; When the Beef is through boiled, you may put so much Salt into the pot as to make the broth like brine, and then boil it gently an hour longer; or take out the Beef, and put it into a deep dish, and put to it some of his broth made brine, and cover it with another dish, and stew it so an hour. A hanch of Venison may be done the same way.

TO BAKE WILDE-DUCKS OR TEALS

Season your Duck and Teal with Pepper and Salt, both within and without, so much as you think may season them; then crack their bones with a roling pin; then put them into an earthen pot close, and cover them with b.u.t.ter, and bake them in an oven as hot as for bread, and let them stand three or four hours; when you take them out of the oven, pour out all the Liquor from them, then melt so much b.u.t.ter as will cover them; when you have melted your b.u.t.ter, let it stand a while, until all the dross be settled to the bottom, and put in the clear b.u.t.ter, which must cover the Fowl.

TO SEASON HUMBLE-PYES: AND TO ROST WILDE-DUCKS

Bake Humble-Pyes without chapping them small in a Pye, seasoned with Pepper and Salt, adding a pretty deal of Parsley, a little sweet-marjoram and Savoury, and a very little Thyme.

Rost wilde Ducks putting into their Bellies some Sage and a little Onion (both well shreded) wrought into a lump with b.u.t.ter, adding a little Pepper and Salt. And let their sauce be a little gravy of Mutton, to enlarge the seasoned gravy, that comes from the Ducks when they are cut up.

TO SOUCE TURKEYS

Take a good fat Turkey or two; dress them clean, and bone them; then tye them up in the manner of Sturgeon with some thing clean washed. Take your kettle, and put into it a pottle of good White-wine, a quart of Water, and a quart of Vinegar; make it boil, and season it with Salt pretty well. Then put in your Turkeys, and let them boil till they be very tender. When they are enough boiled, take them out, and taste the Liquor; if it be not sharp enough, put more Vinegar, and let it boil a little; then put it into an earthen pot, that will hold both Turkeys. When it is cold enough, and the Turkeys through-cold, put them into the Liquor in the Pot, and be sure they be quite covered with the Liquor; Let them lye in it three weeks or a month; Then serve it to the table, with Fennel on it, and eat it with elder Vinegar.

You may do a Capon or two put together in the same manner: but first larding it with great Lardons rowled in Pepper and Salt. A shorter time lying in the pickle will serve.

AN EXCELLENT MEAT OF GOOSE OR TURKEY

Take a fat Goose, and Powder it with Salt eight or ten days; Then boil it tender, and put it into pickle, like Sturgeon-pickle. You may do the like with a very fat Turkey; but the best pickle of that is, the Italian Marinating, boiling Mace, Nutmeg, &c. in it. You may boil Garlick in the belly of the fouls, if you like it, or in the pickle.

TO PICKLE AN OLD FAT GOOSE

Cut it down the back, and take out all the bones; Lard it very well with green Bacon, and season it well with three quarters of an Ounce of Pepper; half an Ounce of Ginger; a quarter of an Ounce of Cloves, and Salt as you judge proportionable; a pint of white wine and some b.u.t.ter. Put three or four Bay-leaves under the meat, and bake it with Brown-bread in an earthen pot close covered, and the edges of the cover closed with Paste. Let it stand three or four days in the pickle; then eat it cold with Vinegar.

ABOUT ORDERING BACON FOR GAMBONS, AND TO KEEP

At Franckfort they use the following cautions about the Bacon they salt for Gambons or sides to keep. The best is of male Hogs of two year old, that have been gelt, when they were young. They kill them in the wane of the Moon, from a day or two after the full, till the last quarter. They fetch off their hair with warm-water, not by burning (which melteth the fat, and maketh it apt to grow resty), and after it hath lain in the open air a full day, they salt it with dry Salt, rubbing it in well: Then lay what quant.i.ty you will in a tub for seven or eight days (in which time the Salt dissolveth to water); then take it out, and wipe it dry, and hang it in a room, where they keep fire, either on a hearth, or that smoak cometh out of a stove into the room (as most of those rooms do smoak) but hang them not in the Chimney, that the hot smoak striketh upon them; but if you have a very large Chimney, hang them pretty high and aside, that the smoak may not come full upon them. After a while, (when they are dry) take them thence, and hang them from the smoak in a dry warm room. When the weather groweth warm as in May, there will drop from them a kinde of melted oyly grease, and they will heat, and grow resty, if not remedied. Take them down then, and lay them in a cold dry place, with hay all about them, that one may not touch another. Change the Hay every thirty, or twenty, or fifteen days, till September, when the weather groweth cool; then hang them up again in the free air, in a dry Chamber. If you make the shoulders into Gambons, you must have a care to cut away a little piece of flesh within, called in Dutch the Mause; for if that remain in it, the Bacon will grow resty.

TO MAKE A TANSEY

Take Spinage, Sorrel, Tansey, Wheat, a quart of Cream; bread (the quant.i.ty of a two peny loaf) twenty Eggs, and half the whites, one Nutmeg, half a pound of Sugar, and the juyce of a couple of Limons. Spinage is the chief herb to have the juyce; Wheat also is very good, when it is young and tender. You must not take much Sorrel, for fear of turning the Cream; but less Tansey, so little that it may not taste distinctly in the composition.

The juyce of Limons is put in at the end of all. You may lay thin slices of Limon upon the Tansey made, and Sugar upon them.

ANOTHER WAY

Beat twelve Eggs (six whites put away) by themselves exceeding well (two or three hours), sometimes putting in a spoonful of Cream to keep them from oyling; Then mingle them well with a quart of Cream; to which put about half a pint of juyce of Spinage (as much as will make the Cream green) or of green wheat, and four spoonfuls of juyce or Tansey, one Nutmeg sc.r.a.ped into thin slices, and half a pound of Sugar; All things exceeding well Incorporated together; Fry this with fresh b.u.t.ter, no more then to glase the Pan over, and keep the Tansey from sticking to the Pan.

TO MAKE CHEESE-CAKES

Take twelve quarts of Milk warm from the Cow, turn it with a good spoonful of Runnet. Break it well, and put it into a large strainer, in which rowl it up and down, that all the Whey may run out into a little tub; when all that will is run out, wring out more. Then break the curds well; then wring it again, and more whey will come. Thus break and wring till no more come.

Then work the Curds exceedingly with your hand in a tray, till they become a short uniform Paste. Then put to it the yolks of eight new laid Eggs, and two whites, and a pound of b.u.t.ter. Work all this long together.

In the long working (at the several times) consisteth the making them good. Then season them to your taste with Sugar finely beaten; and put in some Cloves and Mace in subtile powder. Then lay them thick in Coffins of fine Paste, and bake them.

SHORT AND CRISP CRUST FOR TARTS AND PYES

To half a peck of fine flower, take a pound and half of b.u.t.ter, in this manner. Put your b.u.t.ter with at least three quarts of cold water (it imports not how much or how little the water is) into a little kettle to melt, and boil gently: as soon as it is melted, sc.u.m off the b.u.t.ter with a ladle, pouring it by ladlefuls (one a little after another, as you knead it with the flower) to some of the flower (which you take not all at once, that you may the better discern, how much Liquor is needful) and work it very well into Paste. When all your b.u.t.ter is kneaded, with as much of the flower, as serves to make paste of a fitting consistence, take of the water that the b.u.t.ter was melted in, so much as to make the rest of the flower into Paste of due consistence; then joyn it to the Paste made with b.u.t.ter, and work them both very well together, of this make your covers and coffins thin. If you are to make more paste for more Tarts or Pyes, the water that hath already served, will serve again better then fresh.

To make Goose-pyes, and such of thick crust, you must put at least two pound of b.u.t.ter to half a peck of flower. Put no more Salt to your Past, then what is in the b.u.t.ter, which must be the best new b.u.t.ter that is sold in the Market.

TO MAKE A CAKE

Take eight wine quarts of flower; one pound of loaf Sugar beaten and sea.r.s.ed; one ounce of Mace, beat it very fine: then take thirty Eggs, fifteen whites, beat them well; then put to them a quart of new Ale-yest; beat them very well together, and strain them into your flower; then take a pint of Rose-water, wherein six grains of Ambergreece and Musk have been over night. Then take a pint and half of Cream or something more, and set it on the fire, and put into it four pounds and three quarters of b.u.t.ter; And when it is all melted, take it off the fire and stir it about, until it be pretty cool; And pour all into your flower, and stir it up quick with your hands, like a lith pudding; Then dust a little flower over it, and let it stand covered with a Flannel, or other woollen cloth, a quarter of an hour before the fire, that it may rise; Then have ready twelve pounds of Currants very well washed and pick'd, that there may be neither stalks, nor broken Currants in them. Then let your Currants be very well dryed before the fire, and put warm into your Cake; then mingle them well together with your hands; then get a tin hoop that will contain that quant.i.ty, and b.u.t.ter it well, and put it upon two sheets of paper well b.u.t.tered; so pour in your Cake, and so set it into the oven, being quick that it may be well soaked, but not to burn. It must bake above an hour and a quarter; near an hour and half. Take then a pound and half of double refined Sugar purely beaten and sea.r.s.ed; put into the whites of five Eggs; two or 3 spoonfuls of rose-water; keep it a beating all the time, that the Cake is a baking which will be two hours; Then draw your Cake out of the oven, and pick the dry Currants from the top of it, and so spread all that you have beaten over it, very smooth, and set it a little into the oven, that it may dry.

ANOTHER CAKE

Take three pounds and an half of flower; one penny worth of Cloves and Mace; and a quarter of a pound of Sugar and Salt, and strew it on the flower. Then take the yolks of eight Eggs well beaten, with a spoonful and half of rose water; Then take a pint of thick Cream, and a pound of b.u.t.ter; Melt them together, and when it is so, take three quarters of a pint of Ale-yest, and mingle the yest and Eggs together. Then take the warm liquor, and mingle all together; when you have done, take all, and pour it in the bowl, and so cover the flower over the liquor; then cover the pan with a Napkin, and when it is risen, take four pounds of Currants, well washed and dryed, and half a pound of Raisins of the Sun sliced, and let them be well dryed and hot, and so stir them in. When it is risen, have your oven hot against the Cake is made; let it stand three quarters of an hour. When it is half baked, Ice it over with fine Sugar and Rose-water, and the whites of Eggs, and Musk and Ambergreece.

When you mingle your yest and Eggs together for the Cake, put Musk and Amber to that.

TO MAKE A PLUMB-CAKE

Take a peck of flower, and put it in half. Then take two quarts of good Ale-yest, and strain it into half the flower, and some new milk boiled, and almost cold again; make it into a very light paste, and set it before the fire to rise; Then take five pound of b.u.t.ter, and melt it in a skillet, with a quarter of a pint of Rose-water; when your paste is risen, and your oven almost hot, which will be by this time, take your paste from the fire, and break it into small pieces, and take your other part of flower, and strew it round your paste; Then take the melted b.u.t.ter, and put it to the past, and by degrees work the paste and flower together, till you have mingled all very well. Take six Nutmegs, some Cinnamon and Mace well beaten, and two pound of Sugar, and strew it into the Paste, as they are a working it. Take three pounds of Raisins stoned, and twelve pounds of Currants very well washed and dryed again; one pound of Dates sliced; half a pound of green Citron dryed and sliced very thin; strew all these into the paste, till it have received them all; Then let your oven be ready, and make up your Cake, and set it into the oven; but you must have a great care, it doth not take cold. Then to Ice it, take a pound and half of double refined Sugar beaten and sea.r.s.ed; The whites of three Eggs new-laid, and a little Orange-flower-water, with a little musk and Ambergreece, beaten and sea.r.s.ed, and put to your sugar; Then strew your Sugar into the Eggs, and beat it in a stone Mortar with a Woodden Pestel, till it be as white as snow, which will be by that time the Cake is baked; Then draw it to the ovens mouth, and drop it on, in what form you will; let it stand a little again in the oven to harden.

TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT CAKE

To a Peck of fine flower, take six pounds of fresh b.u.t.ter, which must be tenderly melted, ten pounds of Currants, of Cloves and Mace, half an ounce of each, an ounce of Cinnamon, half an ounce of Nutmegs, four ounces of Sugar, one pint of Sack mixed with a quart at least of thick barm of Ale (as soon as it is settled, to have the thick fall to the bottom, which will be, when it is about two days old) half a pint of Rose-water; half a quarter of an ounce of Saffron. Then make your paste, strewing the spices, finely beaten, upon the flower: Then put the melted b.u.t.ter (but even just melted) to it; then the barm, and other liquors: and put it into the oven well heated presently. For the better baking of it, put it in a hoop, and let it stand in the oven one hour and half. You Ice the Cake with the whites of two Eggs, a small quant.i.ty of Rose-water, and some Sugar.