IN pickling or salting meat, it is better to let the fresh joint first hang for two or three days untouched. This will make the meat more tender. Before salting it, be careful to remove every pipe or kernel in the meat, and fill up all holes with salt. Do not attempt to pickle meat in very cold frosty weather, or in warm damp weather. It is a good plan to sprinkle the meat with water and then to hang it up for a few hours before salting it: this cleanses it from any blood, and makes the flavour more delicate.

A good brine, sufficient for twenty pounds of beef, is made by mixing together three pounds of salt, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and two ounces of saltpetre. Boil these ingredients together for twenty minutes in two gallons of water, skimming off all scum. Let the liquid get quite cold before you pour it over the meat, and see that the joint is thoroughly covered with the brine. For a smaller piece of meat the quantities given for the brine can be easily reduced, following the same proportions carefully. The meat must be turned over every day, and well basted with the brine; and the salting pan or tub must be covered with a clean piece of tamis-cloth, or other porous woollen material. The meat will be ready for use in a fortnight.

In cooking pickled or salted meat, two things must be recollected. First, that, in order to make salted meat tender, it must be put into cold water when first placed on the fire. Secondly, that it is next to impossible to cook salted meat too slowly.

Spiced Round of Beef.—Procure a round of beef weighing from thirty-five to forty pounds; remove the bone, and lay the beef in a stone pan. Well rub into the meat all over (not omitting the sides of the round as well as the top and bottom) a mixture made of four pounds of salt, two pounds of coarse brown sugar, a quarter of a pound of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella from the chemist. Turn the beef every day, and well rub into it the brine which it makes. Let it remain in pickle for one month. When ready for cooking, let the beef be closely bound into shape with coarse webbing. Lay it in a large kettle or pot, and cover the beef with broth as cold as it can be to remain liquid. Add plenty of rough vegetables, such as carrots, turnips, onions, and celery, all sliced. Dry in the oven a sufficient quantity of ginger, cloves, mace, and peppercorns to make two ounces of each when dried and pounded fine in a mortar. Add these to the beef. Bring the broth slowly to a very gentle boil, and then keep it simmering very gently for twelve hours, turning the beef over at the end of six hours. It must on no account be allowed to boil, or it will be hard and tasteless. Remove the kettle from the fire, but let the beef remain in it for two days, when it will have become perfectly cold and firm. Take off the webbing, and the beef will be ready for eating.

Welsh Beef.—Rub two ounces of saltpetre into a round of beef; let it rest an hour, and then rub it with equal parts of pepper, salt, and allspice. Keep the beef in the brine which this will make for fifteen days, turning and rubbing it every day. Then put the beef into a large earthenware round pan, first coating the bottom of the pan with a layer of suet. Put another layer of suet over the top of the beef, and then cover the pan with a coarse paste of flour and water. Bake in a slow oven for eight hours, then pour off any gravy, and let the beef get cold before it is taken out of the pan.

To make Sausages.—Sausages are generally put into the thoroughly cleaned skins of the intestine of the pig. But they are sometimes preferred without this covering. Take two pounds of fresh pork, using both fat and lean in equal proportions, but avoiding the coarse fat from the inside of the pig. Mince the pork as finely as possible, and then pass it twice through the mincing machine. Blanch and mince two dessert-spoonfuls of sage, add four ounces of freshly made bread-crumbs, and season with pepper and a dust of salt. Mix all thoroughly together, and keep the sausage-meat in a cool place. When wanted do not use skins, but form the sausage-meat into small round cakes three-quarters of an inch thick, flour them, and fry them in butter from ten to fifteen minutes, turning them often.

To cook Sausages.—This recipe is for sausages which have been put into skins by the sausage machine. Plenty of time must be allowed for cooking the sausages, for if they are done too quickly the skins will burst. About ten minutes is enough over a low fire, the skins having been well pricked over first. The sausages are much better if they are first pricked, then put into hot water and brought slowly to the boil, simmered for five minutes, drained, and finally fried in bacon fat till they are brown. Serve round a pile of mashed potato, or shape the mashed potato into long ovals, fake them on a buttered baking-tin, and when very hot, lay the potato ovals on a hot dish, and put a sausage on each.

Ham.—Tastes vary much as to the best size of a ham; some people like a York ham weighing thirty or forty pounds, others prefer a foreign ham not exceeding a few pounds in weight. Monsieur de St. Simon, writing in 1721, said he could never forget the delicious flavour of the little Spanish hams he had once tasted near Burgos. The pigs which furnished these hams lived on the flesh of vipers, and in our own day the hams of the little black pigs of North Carolina, which feed on rattlesnakes, are esteemed an especial delicacy. The peculiar flavour of a Westphalian ham is due to the smoke of a fire of juniper branches over which the ham is hung for three weeks.

It was formerly the custom to put a thick coat of mortar over the inside of a cured ham to keep out the air, and to prevent the mildew, or “rust,” which damp is sure to cause. A better way is to cover the underneath portion of the ham (where the knife has been used), and also the knuckle-end of the bone, with a paste made of flour and water. This paste entirely prevents any “rusting,” or, in other words, the minute fungus caused by damp.

To cure a Ham weighing from fifteen to eighteen pounds. Norfolk Recipe.—One pound of treacle, half a pound of coarse brown sugar, half a pound of bay-salt (i.e. sea-salt), one pound of common salt, one ounce of saltpetre, and two ounces of sal prunella (i.e. saltpetre which has been fused, and is sold by chemists). Pound all these together as finely as possible, and rub the ham thoroughly with them. Lay the ham in a tub, covered with the pickle, and let it remain there for a month. It must be turned and basted with the pickle every other day. When taken out of the pickle, let the ham dry for a day or two, standing on end. Then brush it over with Crosse and Blackwell’s essence of smoke. This preparation gives to the ham all the flavour of the chimney-smoke in which hams used to be hung. [This recipe was given to me by a friend in whose family it has been used year by year during four generations.]

Pickle for Bacon.—Weigh each flitch, and allow for every stone (a stone of meat weighs eight pounds) one pound of salt, two ounces of bay-salt, two ounces of saltpetre, and three ounces of coarse brown sugar. Sprinkle the flitches with salt, and drain them for twenty-four hours. Mix the salt, bay-salt, saltpetre, and sugar thoroughly together, and rub all well into the flitches, rubbing the ends as well as the sides. Do this every day for a month. Then hang up the flitches to dry, sewing a bag of coarse muslin over each. [Do not use paper, as it breaks in damp weather. Muslin is a far better protector from the flies, which are always more partial to salt meat than to any other.] The flitch, from the Old English word, is one side of the pig.

To cure Pig’s Cheeks.—Do not use any saltpetre, but clear the two cheeks well, take out the bones, rub well with common salt, let the cheeks drain, and next day rub them again with salt, using a fresh supply. Then mix four ounces of salt with five ounces of coarse brown sugar, cover the cheeks with this mixture, and turn them every day. They will be sufficiently cured in twelve days. If saltpetre is used the cheeks will be hard.

To boil a Ham.—The great point in boiling a ham is to boil it as slowly as possible. If a ham is small and rather fresh, it will need soaking in cold water for only eighteen hours before it is boiled; but as a rule a ham should be soaked for forty-eight hours, the water being changed three or even four times during that period. After the ham has been soaked, scrub it well with a dry, stiff brush, so as to remove all smoke and discoloration from the surface. Trim off any ragged or untidy parts, reserving them for the stock-pot. Now put the ham into a ham-kettle or a large pan, and cover it completely with cold water to the depth of one inch. Let the water heat as slowly as possible, so that it may be an hour and a half or two hours before it comes to the boil. It is a good rule to allow twenty-five minutes’ simmering to each pound of ham. Skim off all scum as it rises. When the liquor is perfectly clear put in one shallot, a stick of celery, two turnips, two or three onions, and three carrots, also add (in a muslin bag) a bunch of parsley, a sprig of thyme and of marjoram, some chopped lemon-peel, and twelve peppercorns. Cover the pan closely, reduce the heat under it, and let the ham simmer very gently for five hours. At the end of that time lift the ham out, peel off the outside skin, and trim it a little if this is needed. Brush the ham over with thin glaze, or cover it with raspings of bread, and set it in a slow oven to brown.

To steam a Ham.—If the ham is quite small this is an excellent way of cooking it. As soon as the ham has been soaked, scrubbed, and trimmed, put it into the steamer over boiling water. Allow twenty-five minutes to every pound of ham, and keep the water under the steamer boiling hard. Either glaze the ham or cover with raspings.

To pot Pounded Meat, Chicken, or Fish.—Cook the meat until it is very tender and easily separated from the bones. Mince it, and then pound it with a quarter of its weight of clarified butter, together with pepper and such other spices and herbs as are liked. Then fill the pots with the mixture, press it tightly, and cover with clarified butter.