Amelia Simmons

“ Rabbits, the wild are the best, either are good and tender; if old there will be much yellowish fat about the kidneys, the claws long, wool rough, and mixed with grey hairs; if young the reverse. As to their being fresh, judge by the scent, they soon perish, if trap'd or shot, and left in pelt or undressed; their taint is quicker than veal, and the most sickish in nature; and will not, like beef or veal, be purged by fire. ”

“ Onions--The Madeira white is best in market, esteemed softer flavored, and not so fiery, but the high red, round hard onions are the best; if you consult cheapness, the largest are best; if you consult taste and softness, the very smallest are the most delicate, and used at the first tables. Onions grow in the richest, highest cultivated ground, and better and better year after year, on, the same ground.
Beets, grow on any ground, but best on loom, or light gravel grounds; the red is the richest and best approved; the white has a sickish sweetness, which is disliked by many. ”

“ Fill the bird with dry Oysters, and sew up and boil in water just sufficient to cover the bird, salt and season to your taste--when done tender, put into a deep dish and pour over it a pint of stewed oysters, well buttered and peppered, garnish a turkey with sprigs of parsley or leaves of cellery: a fowl is best with a parsley sauce. ”

“ Hares, are white flesh'd and flexible when new and fresh kill'd; if stale, their flesh will have a blackish hue, like old pigeons, if the cleft in her lip spread much, is wide and ragged, she is old; the contrary when young. ”

“ Take two porringers of cream and one of white wine, grate in the skin of a lemon, take the whites of three eggs, sweeten it to your taste, then whip it with a whisk, take off the froth as it rises and put it into your syllabub glasses or pots, and they are fit for use.
To make a fine Cream.
Take a pint of cream, sweeten it to your pallate, grate a little nutmeg, put in a spoonful of orange flower water and rose water, and two sponfuls of wine; beat up four eggs and two whites, stir it all together one way over the fire till it is thick, have cups ready and pour it in. ”

“ In dressing all sorts of kitchen garden herbs, take care they are clean washed; that there be no small snails, or caterpillars between the leaves; and that all coarse outer leaves, and the tops that have received any injury by the weather, be taken off; next wash them in a good deal of water, and put them into a cullender to drain, care must likewise be taken, that your pot or sauce pan be clean, well tinned, and free from sand, or grease. ”

“ New pine tubs are ruinous to the butter. To have sweet butter in dog days, and thro' the vegetable seasons, send stone pots to honest, neat, and trusty dairy people, and procure it pack'd down in May, and let them be brought in in the night, or cool rainy morning, covered with a clean cloth wet in cold water, and partake of no heat from the horse, and set the pots in the coldest part of your cellar, or in the ice house.—Some say that May butter thus preserved, will go into the winter use, better than fall made butter. ”

“ Carrots, are managed as it respects plowing and rich ground, similarly to Parsnips. The yellow are better than the orange or red; middling fiz'd, that is, a foot long and two inches thick at the top end, are better than over grown ones; they are cultivated best with onions, sowed very thin, and mixed with other seeds, while young or six weeks after sown, especially if with onions on true onion ground. They are good with veal cookery, rich in soups, excellent with hash, in May and June. ”

“ Salmon, the noblest and richest fish taken in fresh water--the largest are the best. They are unlike almost every other fish, are ameliorated by being 3 or 4 days out of water, if kept from heat and the moon, which has much more injurious effect than the sun. ”

“ Shad, contrary to the generally received opinion are not so much richer flavored, as they are harder when first taken out of the water; opinions vary respecting them. I have tasted Shad thirty or forty miles from the place where caught, and really conceived that they had a richness of flavor, which did not appertain to those taken fresh and cooked immediately, and have proved both at the same table, and the truth may rest here, that a Shad 36 or 48 hours out of water, may not cook so hard and solid, and be esteemed so elegant, yet give a higher relished flavor to the taste. ”

“ If a breast let it be cauled, if a leg, stuffed or not, let be done more gently than beef, and done more; the chine, saddle or leg require more fire and longer time than the breast, &c. Garnish with scraped horse radish, and serve with potatoes, beans, colliflowers, water-cresses, or boiled onion, caper sauce, mashed turnip, or lettuce. ”

“ Parsnips, are a valuable root, cultivated best in rich old grounds, and doubly deep plowed, late sown, they grow thrifty, and are not so prongy; they may be kept any where and any how, so that they do not grow with heat, or are nipped with frost; if frosted, let them thaw in earth; they are richer flavored when plowed out of the ground in April, having stood out during the winter, tho' they will not last long after, and commonly more sticky and hard in the centre. ”

“ They grow thriftiest sown among onions. The turnip Raddish will last well through the winter.
Artichokes--The Jerusalem is best, are cultivated like potatoes, (tho' their stocks grow 7 feet high) and may be preserved like the turnip raddish, or pickled---they like.
Horse Raddish, once in the garden, can scarcely ever be totally eradicated; plowing or digging them up with that view, seems at times rather to increase and spread them.
Cucumbers, are of many kinds; the prickly is best for pickles, but generally bitter; the white is difficult to raise and tender ”

“ Every species generally of salt water Fish, are best fresh from the water, tho' the Hannah Hill, Black Fish, Lobster, Oyster, Flounder, Bass, Cod, Haddock, and Eel, with many others, may be transported by land many miles, find a good market, and retain a good relish; but as generally, live ones are bought first, deceits are used to give them a freshness of appearance, such as peppering the gills, wetting the fins and tails, and even painting the gills, or wetting with animal blood. Experience and attention will dictate the choice of the best. ”

“ The general rules are, to have a brisk hot fire, to hang down rather than to spit, to baste with salt and water, and one quarter of an hour to every pound of beef, tho' tender beef will require less, while old tough beef will require more roasting; pricking with a fork will determine you whether done or not; rare done is the healthiest and the taste of this age. ”

“ Four pound boild beef, chopped fine; and salted; six pound of raw apple chopped also, one pound beef suet, one quart of Wine or rich sweet cyder, one ounce mace, and cinnamon, a nutmeg, two pounds raisins, bake in paste No. 3, three fourths of an hour.
Observations.
All meat pies require a hotter and brisker oven than fruit pies, in good cookeries, all raisins should be stoned.—As people differ in their tastes, they may alter to their wishes. And as it is difficult to ascertain with precision the small articles of spicery; every one may relish as they like, and suit their taste. ”

“ Of all fresh water fish, there are none that require, or so well afford haste in cookery, as the Salmon Trout, they are best when caught under a fall or cateract—from what philosophical circumstance is yet unsettled, yet true it is, that at the foot of a fall the waters are much colder than at the head ”

“ To make the forced meat balls—take one and half pound veal, one pound grated bread, 4 ounces raw salt pork, mince and season with above and work with 3 whites into balls, one or one an half inch diameter, roll in flour, and fry in very hot butter till brown, then chop the brains fine and stir into the whole mess in the pot, put thereto, one third part of the fryed balls and a pint wine or less, when all is heated thro' take off and serve in tureens, laying the residue of the balls and hard boiled and pealed eggs into a dish, garnish with slices of lemon. ”

“ Take two quarts of Strawberries, squeeze them through a cloth, add half a pint of water and two pound of sugar, put it into a sauce pan, scald and skim it, take two pound of Strawberries with stems on, set your sauce pan on a chaffing dish, put as many Strawberries into the dish as you can with the stems up without bruizing them, let them boil for about ten minutes, then take them out gently with a fork and put them into a stone pot for use; when you have done the whole turn the sirrup into the pot, when hot ”

“ Beans require a great deal of water and it is not best to shell them till just before they are ready to go into the pot, when the water boils put them in with some picked parsley and some salt, make them boil up quick, when you see them begin to fall, they are done enough, strain them off, garnish the dish with boiled parsley and send plain butter in a cup or boat. ”

“ One pound soft wheat bread, 3 ounces beef suet, 3 eggs, a little sweet thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper and salt, and some add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hang down to a steady solid fire, basting frequently with salt and water, and roast until a steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with the gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cramberry-sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery. ”

“ All birds are known, whether fresh killed or stale, by a tight vent in the former, and a loose open vent if old or stale; their smell denotes their goodness; speckled rough legs denote age, while smooth legs and combs prove them young. ”

“ One pint milk, one pint emptins, to be laid over night in spunge, in morning, melt three quarters of a pound butter, one pound sugar, in another pint of milk, add luke warm, and beat till it rise well.
No. 6 Three quarters of a pound butter, one pound sugar, 12 eggs, one quart milk, put as much flour as they will wet, a spoon of cinnamon, gill emptins, let it stand till very puffy or light; roll into small cakes and let it stand on oiled tins while the oven is heating, bake 15 minutes in a quick oven, then wash the top with sugar and whites, while hot. ”

“ The Early Yorkshire, must have rich soils, they will not answer for winter, they are easily cultivated, and frequently bro't to market in the fall, but will not last the winter.
The Green Savoy, with the richest crinkles, is fine and tender; and altho' they do not head like the Dutch or Yorkshire, yet the tenderness of the out leaves is a counterpoise, it will last thro' the winter, and are high flavored. ”

“ Fresh gills, full bright eyes, moist fins and tails, are denotements of their being fresh caught; if they are soft, its certain they are stale, but if deceits are used, your smell must approve or denounce them, and be your safest guide. ”

“ Note, all Cabbages have a higher relish that grow on new unmatured grounds; if grown in an old town and on old gardens, they have a rankness, which at times, may be perceived by a fresh air traveller. ”

“ Black Currants, may be cultivated—but until they can be dryed, and until sugars are propagated, they are in a degree unprofitable.
Grapes, are natural to the climate; grow spontaneously in every state in the union, and ten degrees north of the line of the union. The Madeira, Lisbon and Malaga Grapes, are cultivated in gardens in this country, and are a rich treat or desert. Trifling attention only is necessary for their ample growth. ”

“ A roast Potato is brought on with roast Beef, a Steake, a Chop, or Fricassee; good boiled with a boiled dish; make an excellent stuffing for a turkey, water or wild fowl; make a good pie, and a good starch for many uses. All potatoes run out, or depreciate in America ”

“ To three pound flour, sprinkle a tea cup of fine powdered coriander seed, rub in one pound butter, and one and half pound sugar, dissolve three tea spoonfuls of pearl ash in a tea cup of milk, kneed all together well, roll three quarters of an inch thick, and cut or stamp into shape and size you please, bake slowly fifteen or twenty minutes; tho' hard and dry at first, if put into an earthern pot, and dry cellar, or damp room, they will be finer, softer and better when six months old. ”