SHALOT VINEGAR. Split six or eight shalots; put them into a wide-mouthed quart bottle, and fill it up with vinegar. Stop it close; and in a month the vinegar will be fit for use.
SHALOT WINE. Peel, mince, and pound in a mortar, three ounces of shalots, and infuse them in a pint of sherry for ten days. Pour off the clear liquor on three ounces more of shalots, and let the wine stand on them ten days longer. An ounce of sc.r.a.ped horseradish may be added to the above, and a little lemon peel cut thin. This is rather the most expensive, but by far the most elegant preparation of shalot. It imparts the onion flavour to soups and sauces, for chops, steaks, hashes, or boiled meats, more agreeably than any other, without leaving any unpleasant taste in the mouth.
SHANK JELLY. Boil fifteen shanks of mutton in three quarts of water. Two cow heels, three calf"s feet, or five sheep"s feet, will answer the same purpose. Let them stew no longer than to extract a good jelly, and when cold take off the fat, and clear it from the settlement at the bottom.
The jelly may be cleared with whites of eggs, and running it through a jelly bag. Orange or lemon juice, or wine, and sugar, may be added, as is suitable for the patient. Wine however should never be given to any invalid, without the express permission of the medical attendant, as it may do more harm than good, unless used with great discretion. Much less should any kind of spirits be allowed, as they are of a much more dangerous nature than wine in such cases.
SHARP SAUCE. Put into a silver saucepan, or one that is very clean and well tinned, half a pint of the best white wine vinegar, and a quarter of a pound of pounded loaf sugar. Simmer it gently over the fire, skim it well, pour it through a tammis or fine sieve, and send it up in a basin. This sauce is adapted for venison, and is often preferred to the sweet wine sauces.
SHEEP"S EARS. Take a dozen and a half of sheep"s ears, scald and clean them very well; then make a forcemeat of veal, suet, crumbs of bread, a little nutmeg, pepper, salt, and beaten mace, parsley and thyme shred fine; mix these ingredients with the yolk of an egg; fill the ears, and lay one over the other, press them close, flour them, and fry them in clean beef dripping, of a fine brown; serve them up with gravy sauce in the dish, garnished with lemon. This is a pretty side dish.
SHELFORD PUDDING. Mix three quarters of a pound of currants or raisins, one pound of suet, a pound of flour, six eggs, some good milk, lemon peel, and a little salt. Boil it in a melon shape six hours.
SHERBET. This liquor is a species of negus without the wine. It consists of water, lemon, or orange juice, and sugar, in which are dissolved perfumed cakes, made of the best Damascus fruit, and containing also an infusion of some drops of rose-water: another kind is made of violets, honey, juice of raisins, &c. It is well calculated for a.s.suaging thirst, as the acidity is agreeably blended with sweetness. It resembles, indeed, those fruits which we find so grateful when one is thirsty.
SHIN OF BEEF. A shin or leg of beef, weighing full six pounds, will make a large tureen of excellent soup. Cut half a pound of bacon into slices about half an inch thick, lay it at the bottom of a soup kettle or deep stewpan, and place the meat on this, after having first chopped the bone in two or three places. Add two carrots, two turnips, a head of celery, two large onions with two or three cloves stuck in them, a dozen black peppercorns, the same of Jamaica pepper, and a bundle of lemon thyme, winter savoury, and parsley. Just cover the meat with cold water, boil it over a quick fire, skim it well, and then let it stew very gently by the side of the fire for four hours till it is quite tender. Take out all the meat, strain off the soup, and remove the fat from the surface when cold. Cut the meat into small pieces, and put them into the soup, when it is to be warmed up for the table. A knuckle of veal may be dressed in the same way.
SHINGLES. This disorder, of the same nature as St. Anthony"s fire, and requiring a similar mode of treatment, attacks various parts of the body, but chiefly the waist, around which it appears in numerous pimples of a livid hue, and seldom attended with fever. No attempt should be made to repel the eruption; the body should be kept gently open, and the part affected rubbed with a little warm wheaten flour. Then linen bags of oatmeal, camomile flowers, and a little bruised camphor may also be applied, which will effectually relieve the inflammation.
SHOE BLACKING. In three pints of small beer, put two ounces of ivory black, and one pennyworth of brown sugar. As soon as they boil, put a dessert-spoonful of sweet oil, and then boil slowly till reduced to a quart. Stir it up with a stick every time it is used; and put it on the shoe with a brush when wanted.--Another. Two ounces of ivory black; one tea-spoonful of oil of vitriol, one table-spoonful of sweet oil; and two ounces of brown sugar; roll the same into a ball, and to dissolve it add half a pint of vinegar.--Another. Take ivory black and brown sugar candy, of each two ounces; of sweet oil a table-spoonful; add gradually thereto a pint of vinegar, cold, and stir the whole till gradually incorporated.--Another. To one pint of vinegar add half an ounce of vitriolic acid, half an ounce of copperas, two ounces of sugar candy, and two ounces and a half of ivory black: mix the whole well together.--Another. Sweet oil, half an ounce; ivory black and treacle, of each half a pound; gum arabic half an ounce; vinegar, three pints; boil the vinegar, and pour it hot on the other ingredients.--Another.
Three ounces of ivory black, one ounce of sugar candy, one ounce of oil of vitriol, one ounce of spirits of salts, one lemon, one table-spoonful of sweet oil, and one pint of vinegar.--First mix the ivory black and sweet oil together, then the lemon and sugar candy, with a little vinegar to qualify the blacking, then add your spirits of salts and vitriol, and mix them all well together. N. B. The last ingredients prevent the vitriol and salts from injuring the leather, and add to the l.u.s.tre of the blacking.--Another. Ivory black, two ounces; brown sugar, one ounce and a half; sweet oil, half a table-spoonful. Mix them well, and then gradually add half a pint of small beer.--Another. A quarter of a pound of ivory black, a quarter of a pound of moist sugar, a table-spoonful of flour, a piece of tallow about the size of a walnut, and a small piece of gum arabic.--Make a paste of the flour, and while hot put in the tallow, then the sugar, and afterwards mix the whole well together in a quart of water, and you will have a beautiful shining blacking.
SHOES. The best way of cleaning shoes in the winter time is to sc.r.a.pe off the dirt with the back of a knife, or with a wooden knife made for that purpose, while the shoes are wet, and wipe off the remainder with a wet sponge, or piece of flannel. Set them to dry at a distance from the fire, and they will afterwards take a fine polish. This will save much of the trouble in cleaning, when the dirt is suffered to dry on; and by applying a little sweet oil occasionally, the leather will be prevented from growing hard. To secure the soles of shoes or boots from being penetrated with rain or snow, melt a little bees" wax and mutton suet, and rub it slightly over the edges of the sole where the st.i.tches are; this will be sufficient to repel the wet. Occasionally rubbing the soles with hot tar, and dusting over it a small quant.i.ty of iron filings, will tend to fill up the pores of the leather, and preserve the feet dry and warm in winter. The practice of pouring brandy or spirits into shoes or boots, with a view to prevent the effects of wet or cold, is very pernicious, and often brings on inflammation of the bowels. The best remedy for damp feet is to bathe them in warm water; and if they become sore or blistered, rub them with a little mutton suet. As many evils and inconveniences arise from wearing improper shoes, it may be necessary to observe, that an easy shoe, adapted to the size and shape of the foot, is of considerable consequence. The soles should be thick, and their extremities round rather than pointed, in order to protect the toes from being injured by sharp stones, or other rough substances, that may occur in walking. Persons wearing narrow or fashionable shoes, merely for the sake of appearance, not only suffer immediate fatigue and languor when walking only a short distance, but are exposed to the pain and inconvenience of warts and corns, and numerous other maladies; while the want of dry easy shoes checks the necessary perspiration, which extends its influence to other parts of the body. For children, a kind of half boots, such as may be laced above the ancles, are superior to shoes, as they not only have the advantage of fitting the leg, but are likewise not easily trodden down at the heels, and children can walk more firmly in them than in shoes.
SHORT BISCUITS. Beat half a pound of b.u.t.ter to a cream, then add half a pound of loaf sugar finely powdered and sifted, the yolks of two eggs, and a few carraways. Mix in a pound of flour well dried, and add as much cream as will make it a proper stiffness for rolling. Roll it out on a clean board, and cut the paste into cakes with the top of a gla.s.s or cup. Bake them on tins for about half an hour.--Another way. A quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter beat to a cream, six ounces of fine sugar powdered and sifted, four yolks of eggs, three quarters of a pound of flour, a little mace, and a little grated lemon peel. Make them into a paste, roll it out, and cut it into cakes with the top of a wine gla.s.s.
Currants or carraways may be added if agreeable.
SHORT CAKES. Rub into a pound of dried flour, four ounces of b.u.t.ter, four ounces of powdered sugar, one egg, and a spoonful or two of thin cream to make it into a paste. When mixed, put currants into one half, and carraways into the rest. Cut them into little cakes with the top of a wine gla.s.s, or canister lid, and bake them a few minutes on floured tins.
SHORT CRUST. Dry two ounces of white sugar; after it has been pounded and sifted. Mix it with a pound of flour well dried, and rub into it three ounces of b.u.t.ter, so fine as not to be seen. Put the yolks of two eggs well beaten into some cream, mix it with the above into a smooth paste, roll it out thin, and bake it in a moderate oven.--Another. Mix with a pound of fine flour dried, an ounce of sugar pounded and sifted.
Crumble three ounces of b.u.t.ter into it, till it looks all like flour; and with a gla.s.s of boiling cream, work it up to a fine paste.--To make a richer crust, but not sweet, rub six ounces of b.u.t.ter into eight ounces of fine flour. Mix it into a stiffish paste, with as little water as possible; beat it well, and roll it thin. This, as well as the former, is proper for tarts of fresh or preserved fruit.--Another. To a pound of flour allow six ounces of b.u.t.ter, and a little salt. Rub the b.u.t.ter well into the flour with the hand, till the whole is well united, and then put in a small quant.i.ty of cold water, just enough to mix it to a paste. Mould it quite smooth with the hand, and roll it out for use.
SHORT PASTE. Rub a quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter into a pound of flour, mixed with water and two eggs. Work it up to a good stiffness, and roll it out. If for sweet tarts, two table-spoonfuls of sugar should be added.
SHOULDER OF LAMB FORCED. Bone a shoulder of lamb, and fill it up with forcemeat; braise it two hours over a slow stove. Take it up and glaze it, or it may be glazed only, and not braised. Serve with sorrel sauce under the lamb.
SHOULDER OF LAMB GRILLED. Roast a shoulder of lamb till about three parts done, score it both ways into squares about an inch large, rub it over with yolks of egg, season it with pepper and salt, and strew it over with bread crumbs and chopped parsley. Set it before the fire, brown it with a salamander, and serve it up with gravy, mushroom ketchup, lemon juice, and a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour. Heat it over the fire till it is well thickened.
SHOULDER OF MUTTON. If intended to be boiled with oysters, hang it up some days, and then salt it well for two days. Bone it, sprinkle it with pepper, and a little pounded mace. Lay some oysters over it, and roll the meat up tight and tie it. Stew it in a small quant.i.ty of water, with an onion and a few peppercorns, till it is quite tender. Prepare a little good gravy, and some oysters stewed in it; thicken this with flour and b.u.t.ter, and pour it over the mutton when the tape is taken off. The stewpan should be kept close covered. If the shoulder is to be roasted, serve it up with onion sauce. The blade-bone may be broiled.
SHOULDER OF PORK. A shoulder or a breast of pork is best put into pickle. Salt the shoulder as a leg; and when very nice it may be roasted, instead of being boiled.
SHOULDER OF VEAL. Cut off the knuckle for a stew or gravy, and roast the other part with stuffing. It may be larded, and served with melted b.u.t.ter. The blade-bone, with a good deal of meat left on it, eats extremely well with mushroom or oyster sauce, or with mushroom ketchup in b.u.t.ter.
SHOULDER OF VENISON. The neck and shoulder are roasted the same as the haunch, and served with the same sauce. But if the shoulder is to be stewed, take out the bone, and beat the meat with a rolling-pin. Lay amongst it some slices of mutton fat, that have lain a few hours in a little port wine; sprinkle a little pepper and allspice over it in fine powder, roll and tie it up tight. Set it in a stewpan that will just hold it, with mutton or beef gravy, half a pint of port wine, with pepper and allspice. Simmer it close covered, and very slowly, for three or four hours. When quite tender, take off the tape, set the meat on a dish, and strain the gravy over it. Serve with currant-jelly sauce. This is the best way of dressing a shoulder of venison, unless it be very fat, and then it should be roasted. The bone should be stewed with it.
SHREWSBURY CAKES. Sift one pound of sugar, some pounded cinnamon, and nutmeg grated, into three pounds of fine flour. Add a little rose water to three eggs well beaten, and mix with the flour; then pour into it as much melted b.u.t.ter as will make it a good thickness to roll out. Mould it well, roll it thin, and cut it into any shape you please.
SHRIMP PIE. Pick a quart of shrimps; if they be very salt, season them only with mace and a clove or two. Mince two or three anchovies, mix them with the spice, and then season the shrimps. Put some b.u.t.ter at the bottom of the dish, and over the shrimps, with a gla.s.s of sharp white wine. The pie will not take long in baking, and the paste must be light and thin.
SHRIMP SAUCE. If the shrimps be not ready picked pour over a little water to wash them. Put them to b.u.t.ter melted thick and smooth, give them one boil, and add the juice of a lemon.
SHRUB. To a gallon of rum, put a quart of the juice of Seville oranges, and two pounds and a half of loaf sugar beaten fine, and then barrel it.
Steep the rinds of half a dozen oranges in a little rum, the next day strain it into the vessel, and make it up ten gallons with water that has been boiled. Stir the liquor twice a day for a fortnight, or the shrub will be spoiled.
SICK ROOMS. To purify sick rooms from noxious vapours, exhalations, and all kinds of infected air, put half an ounce of finely pulverized black oxide of manganese into a saucer, and pour upon it nearly an ounce of muriatic acid. Place the saucer on the floor of the infected apartment, leave it and shut the door, and the contagion will be completely destroyed. Muriatic acid with red oxide of lead will have a similar effect. Sulphur burnt for the same purpose, has the power of overcoming the effects of noxious vapours. Shallow vessels filled with lime water are of great use in absorbing carbonic acid gas, especially in workshops where charcoal is burnt. Newly prepared charcoal will absorb various kinds of noxious effluvia, and might be used with considerable advantage for the purification of privies, if small pieces of it are strewed upon the floor. Never venture into a sick room if you are in a violent perspiration (if circ.u.mstances require your continuance there for any time,) for the moment your body becomes cold, it is in a state likely to absorb the infection, and give you the disease. Nor visit a sick person, (especially if the complaint be of a contagious nature) with an empty stomach; as this disposes the system more readily to receive the contagion. In attending a sick person, place yourself where the air pa.s.ses from the door or window to the bed of the diseased, not betwixt the diseased person and any fire that is in the room, as the heat of the fire will draw the infectious vapour in that direction, and you would run much danger from breathing in it.
SILK DYES. Silk is usually dyed red with cochineal, or carthamus, and sometimes with Brazil wood. Archil is employed to give silk a bloom, but it is seldom used by itself, unless when the colour wanted is lilac.
Silk may be dyed crimson, by steeping it in a solution of alum, and then dyeing it in the usual way in a cochineal bath. Poppy colour, cherry, rose, and flesh colour, are given to silk by means of carthamus. The process consists merely in keeping the silk as long as it extracts any colour, in an alkaline solution of carthamus, into which as much lemon juice has been poured, as is sufficient to give it a fine cherry red colour. Silk cannot be dyed a full scarlet; but a colour approaching to scarlet may be given to it, by first impregnating the stuff with murio-sulphate of tin, and afterwards dyeing it in equal parts of cochineal and quercitron bark.
SILK STOCKINGS. To clean silk stockings properly, it is necessary first to wash them in a lukewarm liquor of white soap, then to rinse them in clean water, and wash them again as before. They are to be washed a third time in a stronger soap liquor, made hot and tinged with blueing, and rinsed in clean water. Before they are quite dry, they are to be stoved with brimstone, and afterwards polished with gla.s.s upon a wooden leg. Gauzes are whitened in the same manner, only a little gum is put in the soap liquor before they are stoved.
SILKS CLEANED. The best method of cleaning silks, woollens, and cottons, without damage to their texture and colour, is to grate some raw potatoes to a fine pulp in clean water, and pa.s.s the liquid matter through a coa.r.s.e sieve into another vessel of water. Let the mixture stand till the fine white particles of the potatoes are precipitated; then pour off the liquor, and preserve it for use. The article to be cleaned should then be laid upon a linen cloth on a table; and having provided a clean sponge, dip it into the potatoe liquor, and apply it to the article to be cleaned, till the dirt is made to disappear; then wash it in clean water several times. Two middle-sized potatoes will be sufficient for a pint of water. The coa.r.s.e pulp, which does not pa.s.s through the sieve, is of great use in cleaning worsted curtains, tapestry, carpets, and other coa.r.s.e articles. The mucilaginous liquor will clean all sorts of silk, cotton or woollen goods, without hurting or spoiling the colour. It may also be used in cleaning oil paintings, or furniture that is soiled. Dirtied painted wainscots may be cleaned by wetting a sponge in the liquor, then dipping it in a little fine clean sand, and afterwards rubbing the wainscot with it.
SILVERING. For silvering gla.s.s globes, and such kind of articles, one part of mercury, and four of tin, are generally used. But if two parts of mercury, one of tin, one of lead, and one of bis.m.u.th, are melted together, the compound which they form will answer the purpose better.
Either of them must be made in an iron ladle, over a clear fire, and be frequently stirred. The gla.s.s to be silvered must be very clean and dry.
The alloy is poured in at the top, and shaken till the whole internal surface is covered.
SILVERING OF IVORY. Prepare a diluted solution of nitrate of silver, and immerse in it an ivory paper knife. When the ivory has become yellow, in that part where it is in contact with the fluid, take it out and immerse it in an ale gla.s.s containing distilled water, placed in a window. In a short time, by exposure to the rays of the sun, it will become intensely black. Take it out of the water, wipe it dry, and rub it with a piece of leather. The silver will now appear on the ivory in a metallic state, and the knife will retain its silvery coat for a long time.