Mary Eaton - 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

COW HEELS. These are very nutricious, and may be variously dressed. The common way is to boil, and serve them in a napkin, with melted butter, mustard, and a large spoonful of vinegar. Or broil them very tender, and serve them as a brown fricassee. The liquor will do to make jelly sweet or relishing and likewise to give richness to soups or gravies. Another way is to cut them into four parts, to dip them into an egg, and then dredge and fry them. They may be garnished with fried onions, and served with sauce as above. Or they may be baked as for mock turtle.

COWSLIP MEAD. Put thirty pounds of honey into fifteen gallons of water, and boil till one gallon is wasted; skim it, and take it off the fire. Have a dozen and a half of lemons ready quartered, pour a gallon of the liquor boiling hot upon them, and the remainder into a tub, with seven pecks of cowslip pips. Let them remain there all night; then put the liquor and the lemons to eight spoonfuls of new yeast, and a handful of sweet-briar. Stir all well together, and let it work for three or four days; then strain and tun it into a cask. Let it stand six months, and bottle it for keeping.

COWSLIP WINE. To every gallon of water, weigh three pounds of lump sugar; boil them together half an hour, and take off the scum as it rises. When sufficiently cool, put to it a crust of toasted bread dipped in thick yeast, and let the liquor ferment in the tub thirty six hours. Then put into the cask intended for keeping it, the peel of two and the rind of one lemon, for every gallon of liquor; also the peel and the rind of one Seville orange, and one gallon of cowslip pips. Pour the liquor upon them, stir it carefully every day for a week, and for every five gallons put in a bottle of brandy. Let the cask be close stopped, and stand only six weeks before it be bottled off.

CRABS. The heaviest are best, and those of a middling size the sweetest. If light they are watery: when in perfection the joints of the legs are stiff, and the body has a very agreeable smell. The eyes look dead and loose when stale. The female crab is generally preferred: the colour is much brighter, the claws are shorter, and the apron in front is much broader. To dress a hot crab, pick out the meat, and clear the shell from the head. Put the meat into the shell again, with a little nutmeg, salt, pepper, a bit of butter, crumbs of bread, and three spoonfuls of vinegar. Then set the crab before the fire, or brown the meat with a salamander. It should be served on a dry toast. – To dress a cold crab, empty the shell, mix the flesh with a small quantity of oil, vinegar, salt, white pepper and cayenne. Return the mixture, and serve it up in the shell.

CRACKNELS. Mix with a quart of flour, half a nutmeg grated, the yolks of four eggs beaten, and four spoonfuls of rose water. Make the whole into a stiff paste, with cold water. Then roll in a pound of butter, and make the paste into the shape of cracknels. Boil them in a kettle of water till they swim, and then put them into cold water. When hardened, lay them out to dry, and bake them on tin plates.

CRACKNUTS. Mix eight ounces of fine flour, with eight ounces of sugar, and melt four ounces of butter in two spoonfuls of raisin wine. With four eggs beaten and strained, make the whole into a paste, and add carraway seed. Roll the paste out as thin as paper, cut it into shapes with the top of a glass, wash them with the white of an egg, and dust them over with fine sugar.

CRAMP. Persons subject to this complaint, being generally attacked in the night, should have a board fixed at the bottom of the bed, against which the foot should be strongly pressed when the pain commences. This will seldom fail to afford relief. When it is more obstinate, a brick should be heated, wrapped in a flannel bag at the bottom of the bed, and the foot placed against it. The brick will continue warm, and prevent a return of the complaint. No remedy however is more safe or more certain than that of rubbing the affected part, to restore a free circulation. If the cramp attack the stomach or bowels, it is attended with considerable danger: medicine may relieve but cannot cure. All hot and stimulating liquors must be carefully avoided, and a tea-cupful of lukewarm gruel or camomile tea should be frequently given, with ten or fifteen drops of deliquidated salt of tartar in each.

CRANBERRIES. If for puddings and pies, they require a good deal of sugar. If stewed in a jar, it is the same: but in this way they eat well with bread, and are very wholesome. If pressed and strained, after being stewed, they yield a fine juice, which makes an excellent drink in a fever.

CRANBERRY GRUEL. Mash a tea-cupful of cranberries in a cup of water, and boil a large spoonful of oatmeal in two quarts of water. Then put in the jam, with a little sugar and lemon peel; boil it half an hour, and strain it off. Add a glass of brandy or sweet wine.

CRANBERRY JELLY. Make a very strong isinglass jelly. When cold, mix it with a double quantity of cranberry juice, pressed and strained. Sweeten it with fine loaf sugar, boil it up, and strain it into a shape. – To make cranberry and rice jelly, boil and press the fruit, strain the juice, and by degrees mix it into as much ground rice as will, when boiled, thicken to a jelly. Boil it gently, keep it stirring, and sweeten it. Put it in a bason or form, and serve it up with milk or cream.

CRAY FISH. Make a savoury fish-jelly, and put some into the bottom of a deep small dish. When cold, lay the cray-fish with their back downwards, and pour more jelly over them. Turn them out when cold, and it will make a beautiful dish. Prawns may be done in the same way.

CREAM. Rich cream for tea or coffee is prepared in the following manner. Put some new milk into an earthen pan, heat it over the fire, and set it by till the next day. In order to preserve it a day or two longer, it must be scalded, sweetened with lump sugar, and set in a cool place. If half a pint of fresh cream be boiled in an earthen pot with half a pound of sugar, and corked up close in phials when cold, it will keep for several weeks, and be fit for the tea-table.

CREAM FOR PIES. Boil a pint of new milk ten minutes, with a bit of lemon peel, a laurel leaf, four cloves, and a little sugar. Mix the yolks of six eggs and half a tea-spoonful of flour, strain the milk to them, and set it over a slow fire. Stir it to a consistence, but do not let it curdle: when cold it may be spread over any kind of fruit pies.

CREAM FOR WHEY BUTTER. Set the whey one day and night, and skim it till a sufficient quantity is obtained. Then boil it, and pour it into a pan or two of cold water. As the cream rises, skim it till no more comes, and then churn it. Where new-milk cheese is made daily, whey butter for common and present use may be made to advantage.

CREAM CHEESE. To make this article, put into a pan five quarts of strippings, that is, the last of the milk, with two spoonfuls of rennet. When the curd is come, strike it down two or three times with the skimming dish just to break it. Let it stand two hours, then spread a cheese cloth on a sieve, lay the curd on it, and let the whey drain. Break the curd a little with the hand, and put it into a vat with a two-pound weight upon it. Let it stand twelve hours, take it out, and bind a fillet round. Turn it every day till dry, from one board to another; cover them with nettles or clean dock-leaves, and lay them between two pewter plates to ripen. If the weather be warm, the cheese will be ready in three weeks. – Another way. Prepare a kettle of boiling water, put five quarts of new milk into a pan, five pints of cold water, and five of hot. When of a proper heat, put in as much rennet as will bring it in twenty minutes, likewise a bit of sugar. When the curd is come, strike the skimmer three or four times down, and leave it on the curd. In an hour or two lade it into the vat without touching it; put a two-pound weight on it when the whey has run from it, and the vat is full. – To make another sort of cream cheese, put as much salt to three pints of raw cream as will season it. Stir it well, lay a cheese cloth several times folded at the bottom of a sieve, and pour the curd upon it. When it hardens, cover it with nettles on a pewter plate. – What is called Rush Cream Cheese is made as follows. To a quart of fresh cream put a pint of new milk, warm enough to give the cream a proper degree of warmth; then add a little sugar and rennet. Set it near the fire till the curd comes; fill a vat made in the form of a brick, of wheat straw or rushes sewed together. Have ready a square of straw or rushes sewed flat, to rest the vat on, and another to cover it; the vat being open at top and bottom. Next day take it out, change it often in order to ripen, and lay a half pound weight upon it. – Another way. Take a pint of very thick sour cream from the top of the pan for gathering butter, lay a napkin on two plates, and pour half into each. Let them stand twelve hours, then put them on a fresh wet napkin in one plate, and cover with the same. Repeat this every twelve hours, till the cheese begins to look dry. Then ripen it with nut leaves, and it will be ready in ten days. Fresh nettles, or two pewter plates, will ripen cream cheese very well.