Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book: A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping

closely and bake half an hour to the pound, after the water is hot. Baste six times with the liquor in the pan. Take up, scrape off the paste, remove the skin, dusting instantly and thickly with fine cracker-crumbs to stop the escape of the juices. There should be a cracker crust a quarter-inch thick. Set upon the upper grating to brown. Stuffed ham Wash a ham and soak over night; then, with a narrow, sharp blade, remove the bone. Fill the cavity thus left with a forcemeat of bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper and moistened with a little water in which a spoonful of butter has been melted. Sew the ham up closely in a piece of cheese-cloth and boil until done, allowing twenty minutes to the pound. Leave it in the water until cold, transfer to a platter and put under a heavy weight for twelve hours. Now remove the cloth and the skin, and sprinkle the ham with pepper before sending to the table. To pickle pork Mix together four and a half pounds of salt, a pound of brown sugar and one ounce of saltpeter, stirred into three gallons of water. Boil for half an hour, skimming every ten minutes. Set aside to cool, and when cold pour over the meat packed in a crock or keg. Virginia recipe for curing ham Put the ham into pickle made by putting into one and one-half gallons of water one-half pound of brown sugar, one-half ounce of saltpeter and two and one-quarter pounds of salt. Boil this mixture for half an hour, skimming frequently; then set aside to cool and pour over the ham. Leave for two weeks, remove the ham, wash it in fresh water; dip it, still wet, in bran, and coat thickly with it. Now take to the smokehouse and hang, hock end down, in smoke from hickory chips and sawdust for four weeks. Brush off the bran, wrap in brown paper and hang up until needed. POULTRY ROAST TURKEY Draw, with care not to break the gall-bag. Wash out the cavity three times with cold