CIDER. Particular caution is requisite in bottling this useful beverage, in order to its being well preserved. To secure the bottles from bursting, the liquor must be thoroughly fine before it be racked off. If one bottle break, it will be necessary to open the remainder, and cork them up again. Weak cider is more apt to burst the bottles, than that of a better quality. Good corks, soaked in hot water, will be more safe and pliant; and by laying the bottles so that the liquor may always keep the corks wet and swelled, will tend much to its preservation. For this purpose the ground is preferable to a frame, and a layer of sawdust better than the bare floor; but the most proper situation would be a stream of running water. In order to ripen bottled liquors, they are sometimes exposed to moderate warmth, or the rays of the sun, which in a few days will bring them to maturity.
CIDER CUP. To make a cooling drink, mix together a quart of cider, a glass of white wine, one of brandy, one of capillaire, the juice of a lemon, a bit of the peel pared thin, a sprig of borage or balm, a piece of toasted bread, and nutmeg grated on the top.
CINNAMON CAKES. Whisk together in a pan six eggs, and two table-spoonfuls of rose water. Add a pound of fine sugar sifted, a desert-spoonful of pounded cinnamon, and flour sufficient to make it into a paste. Roll it out, cut it into cakes, and bake them on writing paper.
CITRON PUDDING. Boil some Windsor beans quite soft, take off the skins, and beat a quarter of a pound of them into a paste. Then add as much butter, four eggs well beaten, with some sugar and brandy. Put a puff-paste in the dish, lay some slices of citron on it, pour in the pudding, garnish with bits of citron round the edge of the dish, and bake it in a moderate oven.
CLARIFIED BROTH. Put broth or gravy into a clean stewpan, break the white and shell of an egg, beat them together and add them to the broth. Stir it with a whisk; and when it has boiled a few minutes, strain it through a tammis or a napkin.
CLARIFIED BUTTER. To make clarified butter for potted things, put some butter into a sauceboat, and set it over the fire in a stewpan that has a little water in it. When the butter is dissolved, the milky parts will sink to the bottom, and care must be taken not to pour them over things to be potted.
CLARIFIED DRIPPING. Mutton fat taken from the meat before it is roasted, or any kind of dripping, may be sliced and boiled a few minutes; and when it is cold, it will come off in a cake. This will make good crust for any sort of meat pie, and may be made finer by boiling it three or four times.
CLARIFIED SUGAR. Break in large lumps as much loaf sugar as is required, and dissolve it in a bowl, allowing a pound of sugar to half a pint of water. Set it over the fire, and add the white of an egg well whipt. Let it boil up; and when ready to run over, pour in a little cold water to give it a check. But when it rises the second time, take it off the fire, and set it by in a pan a quarter of an hour. The foulness will sink to the bottom, and leave a black scum on the top, which must be taken off gently with a skimmer. Then pour the syrup very quickly from the sediment, and set it by for sweetmeats.
CLARIFIED SYRUP. Break two pounds of double-refined sugar, and put it into a stewpan that is well tinned, with a pint of cold spring water. When the sugar is dissolved, set it over a moderate fire. Beat up half the white of an egg, put it to the sugar before it gets warm, and stir it well together. As soon as it boils take off the scum, and keep it boiling till it is perfectly clear. Run it through a clean napkin, put it into a close stopped bottle, and it will keep for months, as an elegant article on the sideboard for sweetening.
CLARY WINE. Boil fifteen gallons of water, with forty-five pounds of sugar, and skim it clean. When cool put a little to a quarter of a pint of yeast, and so by degrees add a little more. In the course of an hour put the smaller to the larger quantity, pour the liquor on clary flowers, picked in the dry: the quantity for the above is twelve quarts. If there be not a sufficient quantity ready to put in at once, more may be added by degrees, keeping an account of each quart. When the liquor ceases to hiss, and the flowers are all in, stop it up for four months. Rack it off, empty the barrel of the dregs, and add a gallon of the best brandy. Return the liquor to the cask, close it up for six or eight weeks, and then bottle it off.
CLEANLINESS. Nothing is more conducive to health than cleanliness, and the want of it is a fault which admits of no excuse. It is so agreeable to our nature, that we cannot help approving it in others, even if we do not practise it ourselves. It is an ornament to the highest as well as to the lowest station, and cannot be dispensed with in either: it ought to be cultivated everywhere, especially in populous towns and cities. Frequent washing not only improves the appearance, but promotes perspiration, by removing every impediment on the skin, while at the same time it braces the body, and enlivens the spirits. Washing the feet and legs in lukewarm water, after being exposed to cold and wet, would prevent the ill effects which proceed from these causes, and greatly contribute to health. Diseases of the skin, a very numerous class, are chiefly owing to the want of cleanliness, as well as the various kinds of vermin which infest the human body; and all these might be prevented by a due regard to our own persons. One common cause of putrid and malignant fevers is the want of cleanliness. They usually begin among the inhabitants of close and dirty houses, who breathe unwholesome air, take little exercise, and wear dirty clothes. There the infection is generally hatched, and spreads its desolation СКАЧАТЬ