MARSHMALLOW OINTMENT. Take half a pound of marshmallow roots, three ounces of linseed, and three ounces of fenugreek seed; bruise and boil them gently half an hour in a quart of water, and then add two quarts of sweet oil. Boil them together till the water is all evaporated, and strain off the oil. Add a pound of bees" wax, half a pound of yellow rosin, and two ounces of common turpentine. Melt them together over a slow fire, and keep stirring till the ointment is cold.
MASHED PARSNIPS. Boil the roots tender, after they have been wiped clean. Sc.r.a.pe them, and mash them in a stewpan with a little cream, a good piece of b.u.t.ter, pepper and salt.
MASHED POTATOES. Boil the potatoes, peel them, and reduce them to paste.
Add a quarter of a pint of milk to two pounds weight, a little salt, and two ounces of b.u.t.ter, and stir it all well together over the fire. They may either be served up in this state, or in scallops, or put on the dish in a form, and the top browned with a salamander.
MATTRa.s.sES. Cushions, mattra.s.ses, and bed clothes stuffed with wool, are particularly liable to be impregnated with what is offensive and injurious, from persons who have experienced putrid and inflammatory fevers, and cannot therefore be too carefully cleaned, carded, and washed. It would also be proper frequently to fumigate them with vinegar or muriatic gas. If these articles be infested with insects, dissolve a pound and a half of alum, and as much cream of tartar, in three pints of boiling water. Mix this solution in three gallons of cold water, immerse the wool in it for several days, and then let it be washed and dried.
This operation will prevent the insects from attacking it in future.
MEAD. Dissolve thirty pounds of honey in thirteen gallons of water; boil and skim it well. Then add of rosemary, thyme, bay leaves, and sweetbriar, about a handful altogether. Boil the whole for an hour, and put it into a tub, with two or three handfuls of ground malt. Stir it till it is about blood warm, then strain it through a cloth, and return it into the tub. Cut a toast, spread it over with good ale yeast, and put it into the tub. When the liquor has sufficiently fermented, put it into a cask. Take an ounce and a half each of cloves, mace, and nutmegs, and an ounce of sliced ginger. Bruise the spices; tie them up in a cloth, and hang it in the vessel, which must be stopped up close for use.--Another way. Put four or five pounds of honey into a gallon of boiling water, and let it continue to boil an hour and a half. Skim it quite clean, put in the rinds of three or four lemons, and two ounces of hops sewed up in a bag. When cold, put the liquor into a cask, stop it up close, and let it stand eight or nine months.
MEASLES. In general, all that is needful in the treatment of this complaint is to keep the body open by means of tamarinds, manna, or other gentle laxatives; and to supply the patient frequently with barley water, or linseed tea sweetened with honey. Bathe the feet in warm water; and if there be a disposition to vomit, it ought to be promoted by drinking a little camomile tea. If the disorder appear to strike inward, the danger may be averted by applying blisters to the arms and legs, and briskly rubbing the whole body with warm flannels.
MEAT. In all sorts of provisions, the best of the kind goes the farthest; it cuts out with most advantage, and affords most nourishment.
Round of beef, fillet of veal, and leg of mutton, are joints that bear a higher price; but as they have more solid meat, they deserve the preference. Those joints however which are inferior, may be dressed as palatably; and being cheaper, they should be bought in turn; for when weighed with the prime pieces, it makes the price of these come lower.
In loins of meat, the long pipe that runs by the bone should be taken out, as it is apt to taint; as also the kernels of beef. Rumps and edgebones of beef are often bruised by the blows which the drovers give the beasts, and the part that has been struck always taints; these joints therefore when bruised should not be purchased. And as great loss is often sustained by the spoiling of meat, after it is purchased, the best way to prevent this is to examine it well, wipe it every day, and put some pieces of charcoal over it. If meat is brought from a distance in warm weather, the butcher should be desired to cover it close, and bring it early in the morning, to prevent its being fly-blown.--All meat should be washed before it is dressed. If for boiling, the colour will be better for the soaking; but if for roasting, it should afterwards be dried. Particular care must be taken that the pot be well skimmed the moment it boils, otherwise the foulness will be dispersed over the meat.
The more soups or broth are skimmed, the better and cleaner they will be. Boiled meat should first be well floured, and then put in while the water is cold. Meat boiled quick is sure to be hard; but care must be taken, that in boiling slow it does not stop, or the meat will be underdone. If the steam be kept in, the water will not be much reduced; but if this be desirable, the cover must be removed. As to the length of time required for roasting and boiling, the size of the joint must direct, as also the strength of the fire, and the nearness of the meat to it. In boiling, attention must be paid to the progress it makes, which should be regular and slow. For every pound of meat, a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes is generally allowed, according as persons choose to have it well or underdone. In preparing a joint for roasting, care must be taken not to run the spit through the best parts of the meat, and that no black stains appear upon it at the time of serving.
MEAT SAUCE. Put to a clean anchovy, a gla.s.s of port wine, a little strong broth, a sliced shalot, some nutmeg, and the juice of a Seville orange. Stew them together, and mix it with the gravy that runs from the meat.
MEAT SCREEN. This is a great saver of coals, and should be sufficiently large to guard what is roasting from currents of air. It should be placed on wheels, have a flat top, and not be less than about three feet and a half wide, with shelves in it, about one foot deep. It will then answer all the purposes of a large Dutch oven, a plate warmer, and a hot hearth. Some are made with a door behind, which is convenient; but the great heat to which they are exposed soon shrinks the materials, and the currents of air through the cracks cannot be prevented. Those without a door are therefore best.
MEDLEY PIE. Cut into small pieces some fat pork, or other meat underdone, and season it with salt and pepper. Cover the sides of the dish with common crust, put in a layer of sliced apples with a little sugar, then a layer of meat, and a layer of sliced onions, till the dish is full. Put a thick crust over it, and bake it in a slow oven. Currants or scalded gooseberries may be used instead of apples, and the onions omitted.
MELON FLUMMERY. Put plenty of bitter almonds into some stiff flummery, and make it of a pale green with spinach juice. When it becomes as thick as cream, wet the melon mould, and put the flummery into it. Put a pint of calf"s foot jelly into a bason, and let it stand till the next day: then turn out the melon, and lay it in the midst of the bason of jelly.
Fill up the bason with jelly beginning to set, and let it stand all night. Turn it out the next day, the same as for fruit in jelly: make a garland of flowers, and place it on the jelly.
MELON MANGOES. There is a particular sort for preserving, which must be carefully distinguished. Cut a square small piece out of one side, and through that take out the seeds, and mix with them mustard-seed and shred garlic. Stuff the melon as full as the s.p.a.ce will allow, replace the square piece, and bind it up with fine packthread, boil a good quant.i.ty of vinegar, to allow for wasting, with peppercorns, salt, and ginger. Pour the liquor boiling hot over the mangoes four successive days; and on the last day put flour of mustard, and sc.r.a.ped horseradish into the vinegar just as it boils up. Observe that there is plenty of vinegar before it is stopped down, for pickles are soon spoiled if not well covered. Also the greater number of times that boiling vinegar is poured over them, the sooner they will be ready for eating. Mangoes should be pickled soon after they are gathered. Large cuc.u.mbers, called green turley, prepared as mangoes, are very excellent, and come sooner to table.
MELTED b.u.t.tER. Though a very essential article for the table, it is seldom well prepared. Mix on a trencher, in the proportion of a tea-spoonful of flour to four ounces of the best b.u.t.ter. Put it into a saucepan, and two or three table-spoonfuls of hot water; boil it quick for a minute, and shake it all the time. Milk used instead of water, requires rather less b.u.t.ter, and looks whiter.
MICE. The poisonous substances generally prepared for the destruction of mice are attended with danger, and the use of them should by all means be avoided. Besides the common traps, baited with cheese, the following remedy will be found both safe and efficacious. Take a few handfuls of wheat flour, or malt meal, and knead it into a dough. Let it grow sour in a warm place, mix with it some fine iron filings, form the ma.s.s into small b.a.l.l.s, and put them into the holes frequented by the mice. On eating this preparation, they are inevitably killed. Cats, owls, or hedgehogs, would be highly serviceable in places infested with mice. An effectual mousetrap may be made in the following manner. Take a plain four square trencher, and put into the two contrary corners of it a large pin, or piece of knitting needle. Then take two sticks about a yard long, and lay them on the dresser, with a notch cut at each end of the sticks, placing the two pins on the notches, so that one corner of the trencher may lie about an inch on the dresser or shelf that the mice come to. The opposite corner must be baited with some b.u.t.ter and oatmeal plastered on the trencher; and when the mice run towards the b.u.t.ter, it will tip them into a glazed earthen vessel full of water, which should be placed underneath for that purpose. To prevent the trencher from tipping over so as to lose its balance, it may be fastened to the shelf or dresser with a thread and a little sealing wax, to restore it to its proper position. To prevent their devastations in barns, care should be taken to lay beneath the floor a stratum of sharp flints, fragments of gla.s.s mixed with sand, or broken cinders. If the floors were raised on piers of brick, about fifteen inches above the ground, so that dogs or cats might have a free pa.s.sage beneath the building, it would prevent the vermin from harbouring there, and tend greatly to preserve the grain. Field mice are also very destructive in the fields and gardens, burrowing under the ground, and digging up the earth when newly sown.
Their habitations may be discovered by the small mounds of earth that are raised near the entrance, or by the pa.s.sages leading to their nests; and by following these, the vermin may easily be destroyed. To prevent early peas being eaten by the mice, soak the seed a day or two in train oil before it is sown, which will promote its vegetation, and render the peas so obnoxious to the mice, that they will not eat them. The tops of furze, chopped and thrown into the drills, when the peas are sown, will be an effectual preventive. Sea sand strewed thick on the surface of the ground, round the plants liable to be attacked by the mice, will have the same effect.
MILDEW. To remove stains in linen occasioned by mildew, mix some soft soap and powdered starch, half as much salt, and the juice of a lemon.
Lay it on the part on both sides with a painter"s brush, and let it lie on the gra.s.s day and night till the stain disappears.
MILK b.u.t.tER. This article is princ.i.p.ally made in Cheshire, where the whole of the milk is churned without being skimmed. In the summer time, immediately after milking, the meal is put to cool in earthen jars till it become sufficiently coagulated, and has acquired a slight degree of acidity, enough to undergo the operation of churning. During the summer, this is usually performed in the course of one or two days. In order to forward the coagulation in the winter, the milk is placed near the fire; but in summer, if it has not been sufficiently cooled before it is added to the former meal, or if it has been kept too close, and be not churned shortly after it has acquired the necessary degree of consistence, a fermentation will ensue; in which case the b.u.t.ter becomes rancid, and the milk does not yield that quant.i.ty which it would, if churned in proper time. This also is the case in winter, when the jars have been placed too near the fire, and the milk runs entirely to whey. Milk b.u.t.ter is in other respects made like the common b.u.t.ter.
MILK AND CREAM. In hot weather, when it is difficult to preserve milk from becoming sour, and spoiling the cream, it may be kept perfectly sweet by scalding the new milk very gently, without boiling, and setting it by in the earthen dish or pan that it is done in. This method is pursued in Devonshire, for making of b.u.t.ter, and for eating; and it would answer equally well in small quant.i.ties for the use of the tea table. Cream already skimmed may be kept twenty-four hours if scalded, without sugar; and by adding as much pounded lump sugar as shall make it pretty sweet, it will be good two days, by keeping it in a cool place.
MILK PORRIDGE. Make a fine gruel of half grits well boiled, strain it off, add warm or cold milk, and serve with toasted bread.
MILK PUNCH. Pare six oranges and six lemons as thin as possible, and grate them afterwards with sugar to extract the flavour. Steep the peels in a bottle of rum or brandy, stopped close twenty-four hours. Squeeze the fruit on two pounds of sugar, add to it four quarts of water, and one of new milk boiling hot. Stir the rum into the above, and run it through a jelly bag till perfectly clear. Bottle and cork it close immediately.
MILK OF ROSES. Mix an ounce of oil of almonds with a pint of rose water, and then add ten drops of the oil of tartar.
MILK SOUP. Boil a pint of milk with a little salt, cinnamon, and sugar.
Lay thin slices of bread in a dish, pour over them a little of the milk, and keep them hot over a stove without burning. When the soup is ready, beat up the yolks of five or six eggs, and add them to the milk. Stir it over the fire till it thickens, take it off before it curdles, and pour it upon the bread in the dish.
MILKING. Cows should be milked three times a day in the summer, if duly fed, and twice in the winter. Great care should be taken to drain the milk completely from the udder; for if any be suffered to remain, the cow will give less every meal, till at length she becomes dry before her proper time, and the next season she will scarcely give a sufficient quant.i.ty of milk to pay the expences of her keeping. The first milk drawn from a cow is also thinner, and of an inferior quality to that which is afterwards obtained: and this richness increases progressively, to the very last drop that can be drawn from the udder. If a cow"s teats be scratched or wounded, her milk will be foul, and should not be mixed with that of other cows, but given to the pigs. In warm weather, the milk should remain in the pail till nearly cold, before it is strained; but in frosty weather this should be done immediately, and a small quant.i.ty of boiling water mixed with it. This will produce plenty of cream, especially in trays of a large surface. As cows are sometimes troublesome to milk, and in danger of contracting bad habits, they always require to be treated with great gentleness, especially when young, or while their teats are tender. In this case the udder ought to be fomented with warm water before milking, and the cow soothed with mild treatment; otherwise she will be apt to become stubborn and unruly, and retain her milk ever after. A cow will never let down her milk freely to the person she dreads or dislikes.
MILLET PUDDING. Wash three spoonfuls of the seed, put it into a dish with a crust round the edge, pour over it as much new milk as will nearly fill the dish, two ounces of b.u.t.ter warmed with it, sugar, shred lemon peel, and a dust of ginger and nutmeg. As you put it in the oven, stir in two beaten eggs, and a spoonful of shred suet.
MINCE PIES. Of sc.r.a.ped beef, free from skin and strings, weigh two pounds, of suet picked and chopped four pounds, and of currants nicely cleaned and perfectly dry, six pounds. Then add three pounds of chopped apples, the peel and juice of two lemons, a pint of sweet wine, a nutmeg, a quarter of an ounce of cloves, the same of mace, and pimento, in the finest powder. Mix the whole well together, press it into a deep pan, and keep it covered in a dry cool place. A little citron, orange, and lemon peel, should be put into each pie when made. The above quant.i.ty of mince meat may of course be reduced, in equal proportions, for small families.--Mince pies without meat, are made in the following manner. Pare, core, and mince six pounds of apples; shred three pounds of fresh suet, and stone three pounds of raisins minced. Add to these, a quarter of an ounce each of mace and cinnamon, and eight cloves, all finely powdered. Then three pounds of the finest powder sugar, three quarters of an ounce of salt, the rinds of four and the juice of two lemons, half a pint of port, and half a pint of brandy. Mix well together, and put the ingredients into a deep pan. Prepare four pounds of currants, well washed and dried, and add them when the pies are made, with some candied fruit.
MINCED BEEF. Shred fine the underdone part, with some of the fat. Put it into a small stewpan with some onion, or a very small quant.i.ty of shalot, a little water, pepper and salt. Boil it till the onion is quite soft; then put some of the gravy of the meat to it, and the mince, but do not let it boil. Prepare a small hot dish with sippets of bread, mix a large spoonful of vinegar with the mince, and pour it into the dish.
If shalot vinegar is used, the raw onion and shalot may be dispensed with.
MINCED COLLOPS. Chop and mince some beef very small, and season it with pepper and salt. Put it, in its raw state, into small jars, and pour on the top some clarified b.u.t.ter. When to be used, put the clarified b.u.t.ter into a fryingpan, and fry some sliced onions. Add a little water to it, put in the minced meat, and it will be done in a few minutes. This is a favourite Scotch dish, and few families are without it. It keeps well, and is always ready for an extra dish.
MINCED VEAL. Cut some cold veal as fine as possible, but do not chop it.
Put to it a very little lemon-peel shred, two grates of nutmeg, some salt, and four or five spoonfuls either of weak broth, milk, or water.
Simmer these gently with the meat, adding a bit of b.u.t.ter rubbed in flour, but take care not to let it boil. Put sippets of thin toasted bread, cut into a three-cornered shape, round the dish.
MINT SAUCE. Pick and wash the mint clean, and chop it fine. Put it into a small bason, and mix it with sugar and vinegar.
MINT VINEGAR. As fresh mint is not at all times to be had, a welcome subst.i.tute will be found in the preparation of mint vinegar. Dry and pound half an ounce of mint seed, pour upon it a quart of the best vinegar, let it steep ten days, and shake it up every day. This will be useful in the early season of house lamb.
MITES. Though they princ.i.p.ally affect cheese, there are several species of this insect which breed in flour and other eatables, and do considerable injury. The most effectual method of expelling them is to place a few nutmegs in the sack or bin containing the flour, the odour of which is insupportable to mites; and they will quickly be removed, without the meal acquiring any unpleasant flavour. Thick branches of the lilac, or the elder tree, peeled and put into the flour, will have the same effect. Quant.i.ties of the largest sized ants, scattered about cheese-rooms and granaries, would presently devour all the mites, without doing any injury.