Part 49 (1/2)
Take spinage boil'd, green peese, green apric.o.c.ks, green plums quodled, peaches quodled, green necturnes quodled, gooseberries quodled, green sorrel, and the juyce of green wheat.
_To bake Apric.o.c.ks green._
Take young green apric.o.c.ks, so tender that you may thrust a pin through the stone, scald them and sc.r.a.pe the out side, of putting them in water as you peel them till your tart be ready, then dry them and fill the tart with them, and lay on good store of fine sugar, close it up and bake it, ice it, sc.r.a.pe on sugar, and serve it up.
_To bake Mellacattons._
Take and wipe them clean, and put them in a pie made scollop ways, or in some other pretty work, fill the pie, and put them in whole with weight for weight in refined sugar, close it up and bake it, being baked ice it.
Sometimes for change you may add to them some chips or bits of whole cinamon, a few whole cloves, and slic't ginger.
_To preserve Apric.o.c.ks, or any Plums green._
Take apric.o.c.ks when they are so young and green, that you may put a needle through stone and all, but all other plums may be taken green, and at the highest growth, then put them in indifferent hot water to break them, & let them stand close cover'd in that hot water till a thin skin will come off with sc.r.a.ping, all this while they will look yellow; then put them into another skillet of hot water, and let them stand covered until they turn to a perfect green, then take them out, weigh them, take their weight in sugar and something more, and so preserve them. Clarifie the sugar with the white of an egg, and some water.
_To preserve Apric.o.c.ks being ripe._
Stone them, then weigh them with sugar, and take weight for weight, pare them and strow on the sugar, let them stand till the moisture of the apric.o.c.ks hath wet the sugar, and stand in a sirrup: then set them on a soft fire, not suffering them to boil, till your sugar be all melted; then boil them a pretty s.p.a.ce for half an hour, still stirring them in the sirrup, then set them by two hours, and boil them again till your sirrup be thick, and your apric.o.c.ks look clear, boil up the sirrup higher, then take it off, and being cold put in the apric.o.c.ks into a gally-pot or gla.s.s, close them up with a clean paper, and leather over all.
_To preserve Peaches after the Venetian way._
Take twenty young peaches, part them in two, and take out the stones, then take as much sugar as they weigh, and some rose-water, put in the peaches, and make a sirrup that it may stand and stick to your fingers, let them boil softly a while, then lay them in a dish, and let them stand in the same two or three days, then set your sirrup on the fire, let it boil up, and then put in the peaches, and so preserve them.
_To preserve Mellacattons._
Stone them and parboil them in water, then peel off the outward skin of them, they will boil as long as a piece of beef, and therefore you need not fear the breaking of them; when they are boil'd tender make sirrup of them as you do of any other fruit, and keep them all the year.
_To preserve Cherries._
Take a pound of the smallest cherries, but let them be well coloured, boil them tender in a pint of fair water, then strain the liquor from the cherries and take two pound of other fair cherries, stone them, and put them in your preserving-pan, with a laying of cherries and a laying of sugar, then pour the sirrup of the other strained cherries over them, and let them boil as fast as maybe with a blazing fire, that the sirrup may boil over them; when you see that the sirrup is of a good colour, something thick, and begins to jelly, set them a cooling, and being cold pot them; and so keep them all the year.
_To preserve Damsins._
Take damsins that are large and well coloured, (but not throw ripe, for then they will break) pick them clean and wipe them one by one; then weigh them, and to every pound of damsins you must take a pound of Barbary sugar, white & good, dissolved in half a pint or more of fair water; boil it almost to the height of a sirrup, and then put in the damsins, keeping them with a continual sc.u.ming and stirring, so let them boil on a gentle fire till they be enough, then take them off and keep them all the year.
_To preserve Grapes as green as Gra.s.s._
Take grapes very green, stone them and cut them into little bunches, then take the like quant.i.ty of refin'd sugar finely beaten, & strew a row of sugar in your preserving pan, and a lay of grapes upon it, then strow on some more sugar upon them, put to them four or five spoonfuls of fair water, and boil them up as fast as you can.
_To preserve Barberries._