The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families

VEGETABLES. There is nothing in which the difference between an elegant and an ordinary table is more visible, than in the dressing of vegetables, especially greens. They may be equally as fine at first, at one place as at another, but their look and taste afterwards are very different, owing entirely to the careless manner in which they have been prepared. Their appearance at table however is not all that should be considered; for though it is certainly desirable that they should be pleasing to the eye, it is of still greater consequence that their best qualities should be carefully preserved. Vegetables are generally a wholesome diet, but become very prejudicial if not properly dressed. Cauliflowers, and others of the same species, are often boiled only crisp, to preserve their beauty. For the look alone, they had better not be boiled at all, and almost as well for the purpose of food, as in such a crude state they are scarcely digestible by the strongest stomach. On the other hand, when overboiled they become vapid, and in a state similar to decay, in which they afford no sweet purifying juices to the stomach, but load it with a mass of mere feculent matter. The same may be said of many other vegetables, their utility being too often sacrificed to appearance, and sent to table in a state not fit to be eaten. A contrary error often prevails respecting potatoes, as if they could never be done too much. Hence they are popped into the saucepan or steamer, just when it happens to suit, and are left doing, not for the time they require, but till it is convenient to take them up; when perhaps their nutricious qualities are all boiled away, and they taste of nothing but water. Ideas of nicety and beauty in this case ought all to be subservient to utility; for what is beauty in vegetables growing in the garden is not so at table, from the change of circumstances. They are brought to be eaten, and if not adapted properly to the occasion, they are deformities on the dish instead of ornaments. The true criterion of beauty is their suitableness to the purposes intended. Let them be carefully adapted to this, by being neither under nor over done, and they will not fail to please both a correct eye and taste, while they constitute a wholesome species of diet. A most pernicious method of dressing vegetables is often adopted, by putting copper into the saucepan with them in the form of halfpence. This is a dangerous experiment, as the green colour imparted by the copperas, renders them in the highest degree unwholesome, and even poisonous. Besides, it is perfectly unnecessary, for if put into boiling water with a little salt, and boiled up directly, they will be as beautifully green as the most fastidious person can require. A little pearlash might safely be used on such an occasion, and with equal effect, its alkaline properties tending to correct the acidity. Many vegetables are more wholesome, and more agreeable to the taste, when stewed a good while, only care must be taken that they stew merely, without being suffered to boil. Boiling produces a sudden effect, stewing a slower effect, and both have their appropriate advantages. But if preparations which ought only to stew, are permitted to boil, the process is destroyed, and a premature effect produced, that cannot be corrected by any future stewing. In order to have vegetables in the best state for the table, they should be gathered in their proper season, when they are in the greatest perfection, and that is when they are most plentiful. Forced vegetables seldom attain their true flavour, as is evident from very early asparagus, which is altogether inferior to that which is matured by nature and common culture, or the mere operation of the sun and climate. Peas and Potatoes are seldom worth eating before midsummer; unripe vegetables being as insipid and unwholesome as unripe fruit, and are liable to the same objections as when they are destroyed by bad cooking. Vegetables are too commonly treated with a sort of cold distrust, as if they were natural enemies. They are seldom admitted freely at our tables, and are often tolerated only upon a sideboard in small quantities, as if of very inferior consideration. The effect of this is like that of all indiscriminate reserve, that we may negatively be said to lose friends, because we have not the confidence to make them. From the same distrust or prejudice, there are many vegetables never used at all, which are nevertheless both wholesome and palatable, particularly amongst those best known under the denomination of herbs. The freer use of vegetable diet would be attended with a double advantage, that of improving our health, and lessening the expense of the table. Attention should however be paid to their size and quality, in order to enjoy them in their highest degree of perfection. The middle size are generally to be preferred to the largest or the smallest; they are more tender, and full of flavour, just before they are quite full grown. Freshness is their chief value and excellence, and the eye easily discovers whether they have been kept too long, as in that case they lose all their verdure and beauty. Roots, greens, salads, and the various productions of the garden, when first gathered, are plump and firm, and have a fragrant freshness which no art can restore, when they have lost it by long keeping, though it will impart a little freshness to put them into cold spring water for some time before they are dressed. They should neither be so young as not to have acquired their good qualities, nor so old as to be on the point of losing them. To boil them in soft water will best preserve the colour of such as are green; or if only hard water be at hand, a tea-spoonful of potash should be added. Great care should be taken to pick and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and insects, and nicely to trim off the outside leaves. If allowed to soak awhile in water a little salted, it will materially assist in cleansing them from insects. All the utensils employed in dressing vegetables should be extremely clean and nice; and if any copper vessel is ever used for the purpose, the greatest attention must be paid to its being well tinned. The scum which arises from vegetables as they boil should be carefully removed, as cleanliness is essential both to their looking and eating well. The lid of the saucepan should always be taken off when they boil, to give access to the air, even if it is not otherwise thought necessary. Put in the vegetables when the water boils, with a little salt, and let them boil quickly; when they sink to the bottom, they are generally done enough. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their colour and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly, before they are sent to table. When greens are quite fresh gathered, they will not require so much boiling by at least a third of the time, as when they have been gathered a day or two and brought to the public market. The following table shows when the various kinds of vegetables are in season, or the time of their earliest natural growth, and when they are most plentiful, or in their highest perfection.

Artichokes, July, September,

– Jerusalem ditto, Sept. November,

Angelica stalks, May, June,

Asparagus, April, June,

Beet roots, Dec. January,

Boricole, November, January

Cabbage, May, July,

– Red ditto, July, August,

– White ditto, October,

Cardoons, Nov. December,

Carrots, May, August,

Cauliflowers, June, August,

Celery, Sept. November,

Chervil, March, May,

Corn Salad, May, June,

Cucumbers, July, September,

Endive, June, October,

Kidney Beans, July, August,

Leeks, Sept. December,

Lettuce, April, July,

Onions, August, November,

Parsley, February, March,

Parsnips, July, October,

Peas, June, August,

Potatoes, June, November,

Radishes, March, June,

– Spanish ditto, August, September,

Scarlet Beans, July, August,

Small Salad, May, June,

Salsify, July, August,

Scorzonera, July, August,

Sea Kale, April, May,

Shalots, August, October,

Savory Cabbage, Sept. November,

Sorrel, June, July,

Spinage, March, July,

– Winter ditto, Oct. November,

Turnips, May, July,

Turnip tops, April, May,

Windsor Beans, June, August.

VEGETABLES AND FISH. Pick, wash, and chop some sorrel, spinage, small onions or chives, and parsley. Put them into a stewpan with fresh butter, a good spoonful of lemon or Seville orange juice, or vinegar and water, some essence of anchovy, and cayenne pepper. Do these gently over the fire till the vegetables are tender, then put in the fish, and stew them till well done.

VEGETABLE ESSENCES. The flavour of the various sweet and savoury herbs may be obtained, by combining their essential oils with rectified spirit of wine, in the proportion of one dram of the former to two ounces of the latter; by picking the leaves, and laying them in a warm place to dry, and then filling a wide-mouth bottle with them, and pouring on them wine, brandy, or vinegar, and letting them steep for fourteen days.

VEGETABLE MARROW. Take off all the skin of six or eight gourds, put them into a stewpan with water, salt, lemon juice, and a bit of butter, or fat bacon. Let them stew gently till quite tender, and serve them up with rich Dutch sauce, or any other sauce highly flavoured.

VEGETABLE PIE. Scald and blanch some broad beans, and cut in some young carrots, turnips, artichoke bottoms, mushrooms, peas, onions, parsley, celery, or any of these. Make the whole into a nice stew, with some good veal gravy. Bake a crust over a dish, with a little lining round the edge, and a cup turned up to keep it from sinking. When baked, open the lid, and pour in the stew.

VEGETABLE SOUP. Pare and slice five or six cucumbers, add the inside of as many cos-lettuces, a sprig or two of mint, two or three onions, some pepper and salt, a pint and a half of young peas, and a little parsley. Put these into a saucepan with half a pound of fresh butter, to stew in their own liquor half an hour, near a gentle fire. Pour on the vegetables two quarts of boiling water, and stew them two hours. Rub a little flour in a tea-cupful of water, boil it with the rest nearly twenty minutes, and serve it. – Another way. Peel and slice six large onions, six potatoes, six carrots, and four turnips; fry them in half a pound of butter, and pour on them four quarts of boiling water. Toast a crust of bread quite brown and hard, but do not burn it; add it to the above, with some celery, sweet herbs, white pepper, and salt. Stew it all together gently four hours, and strain it through a coarse cloth. Put in a sliced carrot, some celery, and a small turnip, and stew them in the soup. An anchovy, and a spoonful of ketchup, may be added if approved.

VEGETABLE SYRUP. To a pint of white wine vinegar, put two pounds of the best brown sugar. Boil them to a syrup; and when quite cold, add two table-spoonfuls of paregoric elixir, which is made in the following manner. Steep in a pint of brandy a dram of purified opium, a dram of flowers of benjamin, and two scruples of camphor, adding a dram of the oil of anniseed. Let it stand ten days, occasionally shaking it up, and then strain it off. This added to the above composition, forms the celebrated Godbold's Vegetable Syrup. The paregoric elixir taken by itself, a tea-spoonful in half a pint of white wine whey or gruel at bed time, is an agreeable and effectual medicine for coughs and colds. It is also excellent for children who have the hooping cough, in doses of from five to twenty drops in a little water, or on a small piece of sugar. The vegetable syrup is chiefly intended for consumptive cases.

VELVETS. When the pile of velvet requires to be raised, it is only necessary to warm a smoothing iron, to cover it with a wet cloth, and hold it under the velvet. The vapour arising from the wet cloth will raise the pile of the velvet, with the assistance of a whisk gently passed over it. To remove spots and stains in velvet, bruise some of the plant called soapwort, strain out the juice, and add to it a small quantity of black soap. Wash the stain with this liquor, and repeat it several times after it has been allowed to dry. To take wax out of velvet, rub it frequently with hot toasted bread.

VENISON. If it be young and good, the fat of the venison will be clear, bright, and thick, and the cleft part smooth and close: but if the cleft is wide and tough, it is old. To judge of its sweetness, run a very sharp narrow knife into the shoulder or haunch, and the meat will be known by the scent. Few people like it when it is very high.

VENISON PASTY. To prepare venison for pasty, take out all the bones, beat and season the meat, and lay it into a stone jar in large pieces. Pour over it some plain drawn beef gravy, not very strong; lay the bones on the top, and set the jar in a water bath, or saucepan of water over the fire, and let it simmer three or four hours. The next day, when quite cold, remove the cake of fat, and lay the meat in handsome pieces on the dish. If not sufficiently seasoned, add more pepper, salt, or pimento. Put in some of the gravy, and keep the remainder for the time of serving. When the venison is thus prepared, it will not require so much time to bake, or such a very thick crust as usual, and by which the under part is seldom done through. A shoulder of venison makes a good pasty, and if there be a deficiency of fat, it must be supplied from a good loin of mutton, steeped twenty-four hours in equal parts of rape, vinegar, and port. The shoulder being sinewy, it will be of advantage to rub it well with sugar for two or three days; and when to be used, clear it perfectly from the sugar and the wine with a dry cloth. A mistake used to prevail, that venison could not be baked too much; but three or four hours in a slow oven will be sufficient to make it tender, and the flavour will be preserved. Whether it be a shoulder or a side of venison, the meat must be cut in pieces, and laid with fat between, that it may be proportioned to each person, without breaking up the pasty to find it. Lay some pepper and salt at the bottom of the dish, and some butter; then the meat nicely packed, that it may be sufficiently done, but not lie hollow to harden at the edges. In order to provide gravy for the pasty, boil the venison bones with some fine old mutton, and put half a pint of the gravy cold into the dish. Then lay butter on the venison and cover as well as line the sides with a thick crust, but none must be put under the meat. Keep the remainder of the gravy till the pasty comes from the oven; pour it quite hot into the middle by means of a funnel, and mix it well in the dish by shaking. It should be seasoned with pepper and salt. – Another way. Take a side of venison, bone it, and season it with pepper and salt, cloves, and mace finely beaten; cut your venison in large pieces, and season it very well with your spices then lay it into an earthen pan; make a good gravy of two pound of beef, and pour this gravy over the venison; take three quarters of a pound of beef suet, well picked from the skins, wet a coarse cloth, lay your suet on it, and cover it over, and beat it with a rolling-pin, till it is as fine as butter; as your cloth dries, wet it, and shift your suet, and put it over the top of the venison; make a paste of flour and water, and cover the pan, and send it to the oven to bake; it is best baked with a batch of bread; when it comes from the oven, and is quite cold, make a puff-paste; lay a paste all over your dish, and a roll round the inside, then put in your venison with the fat, and all the gravy, if the dish will hold it; put on the lid, and ornament it as your fancy leads. It will take two hours and a half in a quick oven. A sheet of paper laid on the top, will prevent it from catching, and the crust will be of a fine colour. By baking your venison in this manner, it will keep four or five days before you use it, if you do not take off the crust.

VENISON SAUCE. Boil an ounce of dried currants in half a pint of water, and some crumbs of bread, a few cloves or grated nutmeg, a glass of port wine, and a piece of butter. Sweeten it to your taste, and send it to table in a boat.

VERJUICE. Lay some ripe crabs together in a heap to sweat, then take out the stalks and decayed ones, and mash up the rest. Press the juice through a hair cloth into a clean vessel, and it will be fit to use in a month. It is proper for sauces where lemon is wanted.

VERMICELLI PUDDING. Boil a pint of milk with lemon peel and cinnamon, and sweeten it with loaf sugar. Strain it through a sieve, add a quarter of a pound of vermicelli, and boil it ten minutes. Then put in the yolks of five and the whites of three eggs, mix them well together, and steam the pudding an hour and a quarter, or bake it half an hour.

VERMICELLI SOUP. Boil two ounces of vermicelli in three quarts of veal gravy, then rub it through a tammis, season it with salt, give it a boil, and skim it well. Beat up the yolks of four eggs, mix with them half a pint of cream, stir them gradually into the soup, simmer it for a few minutes, and serve it up. A little of the vermicelli may be reserved to serve in the soup, if approved. – Another way. Take two quarts of strong veal broth, put into a clean saucepan a piece of bacon stuck with cloves, and half an ounce of butter worked up in flour; then take a small fowl trussed to boil, break the breastbone, and put it into your soup; stove it close, and let it stew three quarters of an hour; take about two ounces of vermicelli, and put to it some of the broth; set it over the fire till it is quite tender. When your soup is ready, take out the fowl, and put it into your dish; take out your bacon, skim your soup as clean as possible; then pour it on the fowl, and lay your vermicelli all over it; cut some French bread thin, put it into your soup, and send it to table. If you chuse it, you may make your soup with a knuckle of veal, and send a handsome piece of it in the middle of your dish, instead of the fowl.

VICARAGE CAKE. Mix a pound and a half of fine flour, half a pound of moist sugar, a little grated nutmeg and ginger, two eggs well beaten, a table-spoonful of yeast, and the same of brandy. Make it into a light paste, with a quarter of a pound of butter melted in half a pint of milk. Let it stand half an hour before the fire to rise, then add three quarters of a pound of currants, well washed and cleaned, and bake the cake in a brisk oven. Butter the tin before the cake is put into it.

VINEGAR. Allow a pound of lump sugar to a gallon of water. While it is boiling, skim it carefully, and pour it into a tub to cool. When it is no more than milk warm, rub some yeast upon a piece of bread and put into it, and let it ferment about twenty-four hours. Then tun the liquor into a cask with iron hoops, lay a piece of tile over the bung-hole, and set it in the kitchen, which is better than placing it in the sun. It will be fit to bottle in about six months. March is the best time of the year for making vinegar, though if kept in the kitchen, this is of less consequence. A cheap sort of vinegar may be made of the refuse of the bee hives, after the honey is extracted. Put the broken combs into a vessel, and add two parts of water: expose it to the sun, or keep it in a warm place. Fermentation will succeed in a few days, when it must be well stirred and pressed down to make it soak; and when the fermentation is over, the matter is to be laid upon sieves to drain. The yellow liquor which forms at the bottom of the vessel must be removed, the vessel well cleaned, and the liquor which has been strained is to be returned to the vessel. It will immediately begin to turn sour; it should therefore be covered with a cloth, and kept moderately warm. A pellicle will be formed on the surface, beneath which the vinegar acquires strength: it must be kept standing for a month or two, and then put into a cask. The bunghole should be left open, and the vinegar will soon be fit for use. The prunings of the vine, being bruised and put into a vat or mash tub, and boiling water poured on them, will produce a liquor of a fine vinous quality, which may be used as vinegar. – Another method. To every pound of coarse sugar add a gallon of water; boil the mixture, and take off the scum as long as any rises. Then pour it into proper vessels, and when sufficiently cooled put into it a warm toast covered with yeast. Let it work about twenty-four hours, and then put it into an iron-bound cask, fixed either near a constant fire, or where the summer sun shines the greater part of the day. In this situation it should not be closely stopped up, but a tile or something similar should be laid on the bunghole, to keep out the dust and insects. At the end of three months or less it will be clear, and fit for use, and may be bottled off. The longer it is kept after it is bottled, the better it will be. If the vessel containing the liquor is to be exposed to the sun's heat, the best time to begin making it is in the month of April.

VINEGAR FOR SALADS. Take three ounces each of tarragon, savory, chives, and shalots, and a handful of the tops of mint and balm, all dry and pounded. Put the mixture into a wide-mouthed bottle, with a gallon of the best vinegar. Cork it down close, set it in the sun, and in a fortnight strain off and squeeze the herbs. Let it stand a day to settle, and filter it through a tammis bag.

VINEGAR WHEY. Set upon the fire as much milk as is wanted for the occasion, and when it is ready to boil, put in vinegar sufficient to turn it to a clear whey. Let it stand some minutes, and then pour it off. If too acid, a little warm water may be added. This whey is well adapted to promote perspiration. Lemon or Seville orange juice may be used instead of vinegar.

VINGARET. Chop some mint, parsley, and shalot; and mix them up with oil and vinegar. Serve the sauce in a boat, for cold fowl or meat.

VIPERS. The bites of such reptiles should constantly be guarded against as much as possible, as they are not unfrequently attended with dangerous consequences. Animals of the neat-cattle kind are more liable to be bitten and stung by these reptiles, than those of any other sort of live stock. Instances have been known where the tongues of such cattle have been even bitten or stung while grazing or feeding, which have proved fatal. Such stock are, however, seldom attacked by reptiles of the adder kind, except in cases where these are disturbed by the animals in pasturing or feeding; which is the main reason why so many of them are bitten and stung about the head, and occasionally the feet. There are mostly much pain, inflammation, and swelling produced by these bites and stings; the progress of which may commonly be checked or stopped, and the complaint removed, by the use of such means as are directed below. A sort of soft liquid of the liniment kind may be prepared by mixing strong spirit of hartshorn, saponaceous liniment, spirit of turpentine, and tincture of opium, with olive oil; the former in the proportion of about two ounces each to three of the last, incorporating them well together by shaking them in a phial, which will be found very useful in many cases. A proper quantity of it should be well rubbed upon the affected part, two or three times in the course of the day, until the inflammation and swelling begin to disappear, after the bottle has been well shaken. In the more dangerous cases, it may often be advantageous to use fomentations to the affected parts, especially when about the head, with the above application; such as those made by boiling white poppy-heads with the roots of the marshmallow, the leaves of the large plantain, and the tops of wormwood, in the quantities of a few ounces of the first, and a handful of each of the latter, when cut small, and bruised in five or six quarts of the stale grounds of malt liquor. They may be applied frequently to the diseased parts, rubbing them afterwards each time well with the above soft liquid liniment. Where there are feverish appearances, as is often the case in the summer season, a proper quantity of blood may sometimes be taken away with great benefit, and a strong purge be afterwards given of the cooling kind with much use. In slight cases of this kind, some think the continued free use of spirit of hartshorn, given internally, and applied externally to the affected parts, is the best remedy of any that is yet known. As they are so dangerous, these reptiles should always be destroyed as much as possible in all pastures and grazing grounds.