Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers

them in butter. Another way of cooking them is to cut them in thin slices, and bake them on a bake-iron that is hot enough to bake cakes. Salsify, or Oyster Plant. Scrape the roots, and boil them till soft; mash them, and put in butter, pepper, salt, and egg and flour enough to stick them together; make this in cakes as large as an oyster, and fry them in butter; or after boiling, you can cut them in slices and stew them in water; then butter and season, and thicken with a little flour and cream. To Stew or Fry Mushrooms. Be careful in gathering mushrooms that you have the right kind; they are pink underneath, and white on the top, and the skin will peel off easily, but it sticks to the poisonous ones. After you have peeled them, sprinkle them with salt and pepper, and put them in a stew pan, with a little water, and a lump of butter; let them boil fast ten minutes, and stir in a thickening of flour and cream. They may be fried in butter, or broiled on a gridiron. They are sometimes very abundant in the fall, on ground that has not been ploughed for several years; they appear after a warm rain; they may be peeled, salted, and allowed to stand some hours before cooking. Cucumbers, to Fry or Slice. To fry cucumbers, take off the rinds in long pieces, a quarter of an inch thick; season them with pepper and salt; dip them in flour, and fry them in butter. Many persons think cucumbers unwholesome, and they certainly are if kept for several days before they are eaten; but if sliced thin, with onions, pepper, salt and good vinegar, they may generally be eaten without danger. Lettuce. Persons that are fond of lettuce may have it nearly all the year, by sowing the different kinds, and keeping it covered through the winter; the most approved way of dressing it is to cut it fine, and season with oil, mustard, pepper, salt, vinegar, and a hard egg chopped. The