A year's cookery

Grapes, Plums, Melons, Mulberries, Blackberries, Nectarines, Apples, Apricots, Peaches, Pomegranates, Pears, Cob Nuts, Filberts, Walnuts, Hazel Nuts, Figs. KETCHUP. Mushroom Ketchup. — Choose mushrooms that are large, fully ripe, perfectly fresh, and gathered in dry weather. If they are taken in wet weather or soon after rain the ketchup will not keep. Cut off the ends of the stalks, look the mushrooms over, and throw aside any that are worm-eaten or decayed. Break the mushrooms into small pieces, put them into an earthen pan, and mix them well with salt, in the proportion of three-quarters of a pound of salt to a peck of mushrooms. Let them stand for three days, and turn them over every now and then with a wooden spoon. Drain the liquor from them without pressure, put the juice into a very clean stewpan, and let it simmer for half an hour. Pour it out and leave it till next day; strain it again, and with every pint of the liquor add a quarter of a tea-spoonful of mace, the same quantity of powdered ginger, and half the quantity of cayenne. Simmer half an hour longer. Let the ketchup stand till quite cold, pour it off free from sediment, put the clear liquor into perfectly dry, but cold, quart bottles, and put a dessert-spoonful of brandy into each bottle. Cork securely with new and sound corks, cut these level with the top of the bottle, and seal them over to thoroughly exclude the air. Sometimes a spoonful of Lucca oil is poured into the ketchup to preserve it. The mushrooms that were left after the clear liquor was poured off may have a little more salt sprinkled over them, then be put into a cool oven for a night, after which the juice can be well pressed from them, and this, with the sediment left after the juice was strained, can be boiled and flavoured highly with a quarter of an ounce each of black pepper, Jamaica pepper, cloves, and bruised ginger, with three anchovies chopped small and a spoonful of port to every quart of ketchup. This will afford a liquor which, though thick and inferior to the other in flavour, will yet be very useful for flavouring stews and hashes. October 1st. Breakfast. Luncheon. Dinner. Fried Tomatoes. Toad-in-the-Hole. Mutton Collops. Cauliflower au Gratiu. Buttered Toast. Dry Toast. Brown and White Bread and Butter. Marmalade. Oatmeal Porridge. Oyster Soup. Curried Mutton. Boiled Bice. Vegetable Marrow. Golden Pudding. Cheese. Marketing. For the Bay.— One pound of Buttock Steak for Toad-in-the-hole ; a large Cauli¬ flower; Vegetable Marrow; six ounces of Beef Suet; a tin of Oysters or a dozen fresh Oysters. For To-morrow.— A dried Haddock ; order a fine Ox-tail. Breakfast. — Mutton Collops, with Tomatoes. — Cut half a dozen thin slices from the cold mutton. Break an egg into a plate and beat it lightly. Draw the slices of mutton through it and toss them in the bread-crumbs, which have been mixed with a tea-spoonful of flour and a little pepper and salt. Melt a slice of butter in a fryingpan, put in the collops, and cook them very gently. When they are brown upon one side turn them to the other. Cut the tomatoes into slices about half an inch thick. Take up the collops, put them on a hot dish, and fry the tomatoes in the same fat. In three or four