Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

hours; then, if for pickled herring, change them into new brine, which must also bear an egg, and head them up to keep. If for red herring, hang them up, and smoke them thoroughly. A little saltpetre, added to the brine, is an improvement. It is better to take out the roe. BUTTER, CHEESE, COFFEE, TEA, &c. Butter. It is of the first importance that every thing connected with milk and butter should be kept clean; if the milk acquires an unpleasant taste, it communicates it to the butter. Tin pans are best to keep milk in, and they should be painted on the outside to keep them from rusting when they are put in water. In summer, milk should be kept as cool as possible; before it is strained, the pans and strainer should be rinsed with cold water, and the milk not covered until it is cold, as soon as the cream rises sufficiently, it should be skimmed, and put in a large tin bucket with a lid that fits down tight, and stirred every day. Butter will be spoiled by neglecting to stir the cream, a yellow scum will form on it, which gives it an unpleasant taste. And if you leave a pan of milk till the cream is covered with spots of mould, you had better throw it away than put it in, as it will spoil the taste of a whole churning. If you have no way of keeping your cream cool in hot weather, it ought to be churned twice a week, the earlier in the morning the better. Always put cold water in your churn the night before you use it, and change it in the morning just before you put in the cream. When the butter is gathering, take off the lid of the churn to let the heated air escape, and move it gently, have your butter ladle and pan scalded and cooled, take out the butter and work it till all the milk is out, scrape some lumps of salt, and work in, cover it up, and set away