Page:Art of Cookery 1774 edition.djvu/296

258 YOU must take a hind-quarter of mutton, cut it like a ham, take one ounce of salt-petre, a pound of coarse sugar, a pound of common salt; mix them and rub your ham, lay it in a hollow tray with the skin downwards, baste it every day for a fortnight, then roll it in saw-dust, and hang it in the wood-smoke, a fortnight; then boil it, and hang it in a dry place, and cut it out in rashers. It don't eat well boiled, but eats finely broiled. YOU must take a fat hind-quarter of pork, and cut off a fine ham. Take an ounce of salt-petre, a pound of coarse sugar, and a pound of common salt; mix all together, and rub it well. Let it lie a month in this pickle turning and basting it every day, then hang it in wood smoke as you do beef, in a dry place, so as no heat comes to it; and it you keep them long, hang them a month or two in a damp place, so as they will be mouldy, and it will make them cut fine and short. Never lay these hams in water till you boil them, an then boil them in a copper, if you have one, or the biggest pot you have. Put them in the cold water, and let them be four or five hours before they boil. Skim the pot well and often, till it boils. If it is a very large one, two hours will boil it; if a small one, an hour and a half will do, provided it be a gread while before the water boils. Take it up half an hour before dinner, pull off the skin, and throw raspings finely sisted all over. Hold a red-hot fire shovel over it, and when dinner is ready take a few raspings in a sieve and sift all over the dish; then lay in your ham, and with your finger make fine figures round the edge of the dish. Be sure to boil your ham in as much water as you can, and to keep it skimming all the time till it boils. It must be at least four hours before it boils.

This pickle does finely for tongues, afterwards to lie in it a fortnight, and then hang in the wood-smoke a fortnight, or to boil them out of the pickle.

Yorkshire is famous for hams; and the reason is this: their salt is much finer than ours in London, it is a large clear salt, and gives the meat a fine flavour. I used to have it from Malden in Essex, an that salt will make any ham as fine as you can desire. It is by much the best salt for salting of meat. A deep hollow wooden tray is better than a pan. because the pickle swells about it.