The Closet Of Sir Kenelm Digby

 

MARROW-PUDDINGS
Take the pith of Beeves; a good spoonful of Almonds very small beaten with Rose-water: beat the pith, when the skin is taken off very well with a spoon; then mingle it with the Almonds, and put in it six yolks of Eggs well beaten, and four spoonfuls of Cream boiled and cold, it must be very thick; put in a little Ambergreece, and as much Sugar, as will sweeten them; a little Salt, and the Marrow of two good bones, cut in little pieces. When your Beefs-guts are seasoned, fit them up and boil them.

TO MAKE RED DEAR
Take a piece of the Buttock of Beef, the leanest of it, and beat it with a rowling-pin the space of an hour, till you think you have broken the grain of it, and have made it very open both to receive the sowsing-drink, and also to make it tender. Then take a pint of Vinegar, and a pint of Claret-wine and let it lie therein two nights, and two days. Then beat a couple of Nutmegs, and put them into the sowsing-drink; then Lard it.

Your Lard must be as big as your greatest finger for consuming. Then take Pepper, Cloves, Mace and Nutmegs, and season it very well in every place, and so bake it in Pye-paste, and let it stand in the oven six or seven hours. And when it hath stood three hours in your oven, then put it in your sowsing-drink as is aforesaid; and you may keep it a quarter of a year, if it be kept close.

TO MAKE A SHOULDER OF MUTTON LIKE VENISON
Save the blood of your sheep, and strain it. Take grated bread almost the quantity of a Peny loaf, Pepper, Thyme, chopp’d small; mingle these Ingredients with a little of the blood, and stuff the Mutton. Then wrap up your shoulder of Mutton, and lay it in the blood twenty four hours; prick the shoulder with your Knife, to let the blood into the flesh, and so serve it with Venison Sawce.

TO STEW A RUMP OF BEEF
Take a Rump of Beef, and season it with Nutmegs grated, and some Pepper and Salt mingled together, and season the Beef on the Bony-side; lay it in a pipkin with the flat-side downward. Take three pints of Elder-wine-vinegar, and as much water, and three great Onions, and a bunch of Rosemary tyed up together. Put them all into a Pipkin, and stew them three or four hours together with a soft fire being covered close. Then dish it up upon sippets, blowing off the fat from the Gravy; and some of the Gravy put into the Beef, and serve it up.

TO BOIL SMOAKED FLESH
Mounsieur Overbec doth tell me, that when He boileth a Gambon of Bacon, or any salted flesh and hanged in the smoak (as Neats-tongues, Hung-beef, and Hogs-cheeks, &c.), He putteth into the Kettle of water to boil with them three or four handfuls of fleur de foin, (more or less according to the quantity of flesh and water,) tyed loosly in a bag of course-cloth. This maketh it much tenderer, shorter, mellower, and of a finer colour.

A PLAIN BUT GOOD SPANISH OGLIA
Take a Rump of Beef, or some of Brisket or Buttock cut into pieces, a loin of Mutton, with the superfluous fat taken off, and a fleshy piece of the Leg of Veal or a Knuckle, a piece of enterlarded Bacon, three or 4 Onions (or some Garlike) and if you will, a Capon or two, or three great tame Pigeons.

First, put into the water the Beef and the Bacon; After a while, the Mutton and Veal and Onions. But not the Capon or Pigeons till only so much time remain, as will serve barely to boil them enough. If you have Garavanzas, put them in at the first, after they have been soaked with Ashes all night in heat, and well washed with warm water, after they are taken out; or if you will have Cabbage, or Roots, or Leeks, or whole Onions, put them in time enough to be sufficiently boiled.

You may at first put in some Crusts of Bread, or Venison Pye crust. It must boil in all five or six hours gently, like stewing after it is well boiled. A quarter or half an hour before you intend to take it off, take out a porrenger full of broth, and put to it some Pepper and five or six Cloves and a Nutmeg, and some Saffran, and mingle them well in it. Then put that into the pot, and let it boil or stew with the rest a while. You may put in a bundle of Sweet-herbs. Salt must be put in as soon as the water is skimmed.

VUOVA LATTATE
Take a quart of good, but fine broth; beat with it very well eight New laid-eggs (whites and all) and put in a little Sugar, and if you will a little Amber, or some Mace, or Nutmeg. Put all this into a fit Pipkin, and set this in a great one, or a kettle of boiling water, till it be stiffened like a Custard.

VUOVA SPERSA
When some broth is boiling in a Pipkin, pour into it some Eggs well beaten, and they will curdle in a lump, when they are enough; take them out with a holed ladle, and lay them upon the bread in the Minestra.

TO MAKE EXCELLENT BLACK-PUDDINGS
Take a quart of Sheeps blood, and a quart of Cream; ten Eggs, the yolks and the whites beaten well together; stir all this Liquor very well, then thicken it with grated Bread, and Oat-meal finely beaten, of each a like quantity; Beef-suet finely shred and Marrow in little lumps: season it with a little Nutmeg and Cloves and Mace mingled with Salt, a little Sweet-marjoram, Thyme and Peny-royal shred very well together, and mingle them with the other things: Some put in a few Currants; then fill them in cleansed guts, and boil them carefully.

A RECEIPT TO MAKE WHITE PUDDINGS
Take a fillet of Veal, and a good fleshy Capon; then half rost them both, and take off their skins: which being done, take only the wings and brawns with an equal proportion of Veal, which must be shred very small as is done for Sassages. To this shred half a pound of the belly part of interlarded Bacon, and half a pound of the finest leaf (la panne) of Hog cleared from the skin; then take the yolks of eighteen or twenty Eggs, and the whites of six well beaten with as much Milk and Cream, as will make it of convenient thickness; and then season it with Salt, Cloves, Nutmeg, Mace, Pepper, and Ginger, if you please.

The Puddings must be boiled in half Milk and half water. You are to use small-guts, such as for white-Marrow-puddings, and they are to be cleansed in the Ordinary manner; and filled very lankley; for they will swell much in the boiling, and break if they be too full.

TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT PUDDING
Take of the Tripes of Veal the whitest and finest you can find; wash them well, and let them lie in fair Fountain or River water, till they do not smell like Tripes. This done, cut them so small as is necessary to pass through a Funnel. Take also one or two pounds of Pork, that hath not been salted, and cut it as small as the Tripes, and mingle them altogether; which season with Salt, White-pepper, Anis-seeds beaten and Coriander-seeds;

Then make a Liaison with a little Milk and yolks of Eggs; and after all is well mingled and thickned, as it ought to be, you must fill with it the greatest guts of a Hog, that may be had, with a Funnel of White iron, having first tyed the end of the gut below. Do not fill it too full, for fear they should break in the boiling, but leave room enough for the flesh to swell. When you are going to boil them, put them into a Kettle with as much Milk as will cover and boil them, being boiled, let them lie in the liquor till they are almost cold, then take them out and lay them in a basket upon a clean linnen cloth to cool. If they are well seasoned, they will keep twelve or fifteen days; provided you keep them in a good place, not moist, nor of any bad smell. You must still turn them and remove them from one place to another.

SCOTCH COLLOPS
My Lord of Bristol’s Scotch Collops are thus made: Take a leg of fine Sweet-Mutton, that, to make it tender, is kept as long as possible may be without stinking. In Winter seven or eight days. Cut it into slices with a sharp Knife as thin as possibly you can. Then beat it with the back of a heavy Knife, as long as you can, not breaking it in pieces. Then sprinkle them with Salt, and lay them upon the Gridiron over a small Charcoal-fire, to broil, till you perceive that side is enough, and before any moisture run out of them upon the fire.

Then lay the Collops into a warm dish close covered, till the Gravy be run out of them. Then lay their other side upon the Gridiron, and make an end of broiling them, and put them again into the dish, where the former Gravy run out. Add to this more Gravy of Mutton, heightened with Garlike or Onions, or Eschalots; and let them stew a while together, then serve them in very hot.

They are also very good of a Rump of tender Beef.

TO ROST WILD-BOAR
At Franckfort, when they rost Wild-boar (or Robuck or other Venison) they lay it to soak, six or eight or ten days (according to the thickness and firmness of the piece and Penetrability of it) in good Vinegar, wherein is Salt and Juniper-berries bruised (if you will, you may add bruised Garlick or what other Haut-goust you like) the Vinegar coming up half way the flesh, and turn it twice a day. Then if you will, you may Lard it.

When it is rosted, it will be very mellow and tender. They do the like with a leg or other part of Fresh-pork.

PYES: I made good Pyes there with two Hares, a good Goose and (as much as the Goose is) the lean of fresh good Pork, all well hashed and seasoned; then larded with great Lardons well seasoned (first sprinkled with Vinegar and Wine) and covered with Bay-leaves, and sheets of Lard; then laid inpast, and baked. I made also good Pyes of Red-Deer, larding well the lean, then laying under it a thick Plastron (or Cake of a Finger thick) of Beef-suet, first chapped small, and seasoned well with Pepper and Salt, then beaten into a Cake fit for the meat. And another such Cake upon the Deers-flesh, and so well baked in strong crust, and soaked two or three hours in the oven after it was baked enough, which required six good hours. If you use no Suet, put in Butter enough; as also, put in enough to fill the paste, after it is baked and half cold, by a hole made in the top, when it is near half baked.

BAKED VENISON
My Lady of Newport bakes her Venison in a dish thus; A side or a hanch serves for two dishes. Season it as for a Pasty. Line the dish with a thin crust, of good pure Past, but make it pretty thick upwards towards the brim, that it may be there Pudding crust. Lay then the Venison in a round piece upon the Paste in the dish, that must not fill it up to touch the Pudding, but lie at ease; put over it a cover, and let it over-reach upon the brim with some carved Pasty work to grace it, which must go up with a border like a lace growing a little way upwards upon the Cover, which is a little arched up, and hath a little hole in the top to pour in unto the meat the strong well seasoned broth that is made of the broken bones, and remaining lean flesh of the Venison.

Put a little pure Butter or Beef-suet to the Venison, before you put the cover on, unless it be exceeding fat. This must bake five or six hours or more as an ordinary Pasty. An hour, or an hour and half before you take it out to serve it up, open the Oven, and draw out the dish far enough to pour in at the little hole of the cover the strong decoction (in stead of decoction in water, you may boil it by it self in Balneo in duplici vase; or bake it in a pot with broth and Gravy of Mutton) of the broken bones and flesh.

Then set it in again, to make an end of his baking and soaking. The meat within (even the lean) will be exceeding tender and like a gelly; so that you may cut all of it with a spoon. If you bake a side at once in two dishes, the one will be very good to keep cold; and when it is so, you may, if you please, bake it again, to have it hot; not so long as at first, but enough to have it all perfectly heated through. She bakes thus in Pewter-dishes of a large cise.

Mutton or Veal may be thus baked with their due seasoning; as with Onions, or Onions and Apples, or Larding, or a Cawdle, &c. Sweetbreads, Beatilles, Champignons, Treuffles, &c.

AN EXCELLENT WAY OF MAKING MUTTON STEAKS
Cut a Rack of Mutton into tender Steaks, Rib by Rib, and beat the flesh well with the back of a Knife. Then have a composition ready, made of Crumbs of stale Manchet grated small, and a little Salt (a fit proportion to Salt the meat) and a less quantity of White-pepper. Cover over on both sides all the flesh with this, pretty thick, pressing it on with your fingers and flat Knife, to make it lie on.

Then lay the Steaks upon a Gridiron over a very quick fire (for herein consisteth the well doing) and when the fire hath pierced in a little on the one side, turn the other, before any juyce drop down through the Powder. This turning the steaks will make the juyce run back the other way; and before it run through, and drop through this side, you must turn again the other side; doing so till the Steaks be broiled enough.

Thus you keep all the juyce in them, so that when you go to eat them (which must be presently, as they are taken from the fire) abundance of juyce runneth out as soon as your Knife entereth into the flesh. The same Person, that doth this, rosteth a Capon so as to keep all its juyce in it. The mystery of it is in turning it so quick, that nothing can drop down. This maketh it the longer in rosting. But when you cut it up, the juyce runneth out, as out of a juycie leg of Mutton; and it is excellent meat.