Cassell's dictionary of cookery

a broad-bottomed pan or tub, having first replaced the piece taken out, and pour the pickle over them, two inches above the top. In twenty-four hours take them out, and drain on a sieve. Make a seasoning of a small quantity of scraped horseradish, shred shaUots, equal parts of bruised mustard and coriander seed, a few peppercorns, allspice, pounded mace, and cloves. FiU the hollow of the melons with the spice, &c. ; put in beans, small onions, and cucumbers. The onions should be peeled and boiled for a minute or two, the beans, &c., scalded, and the piece sewed on firmly with coarse thread, always remembering to lay the cut sides up when the melons are put into the jar. Boil as much vinegar as will be required to cover with the seeds of the fruit. Strew cloves, pepper, and put in a fevi^ capsicums before straining over the melons. Cover with a cloth, and let the jar stand near the fire for an hour or so. Next day, and for four or five successive days, make the vinegar hot, adding at the last heating about half an ounce of garlic, the same of white peppercorns, ginger, and cardamom seeds. Boil twenty minutes. Cover when cold, and set aside for use. Melon, Pickled, for Venison.— Take melons about the size of a large orange, and before they are quite ripe. When peeled, and the seeds are taken out, slice them into a bowl of good vinegar, and cover up for a week or more. At the end of that time drain the fruit, and simmer it until tender in an enamelled pan mth fresh vinegar. Again drain the sHces, and when dry make a thin syrup by boiling together a povmd of sugar with a pint and a half of water. Skim well, put the melons into the bottles in which they are to remain, and cover with the syrup. In eight or ten days throw off half of it, and fill the bottles with boiled vinegar in which the flavour of a few cloves has been extracted. Let it be quite cold before being added. Melon, Preserved- — Pare some middlesized, not over-ripe, melons — they are better than large ones for this preserve — take out the pulp and seeds, from which press the juice. Wash the melons, and add the water to the juice to be reserved for making the syrup. Divide the melons into eight jiieces, lengthwise, and soak them for twenty-foui- hours in cold water, in which has been put salt and vinegar, allowing two tea-spoonfuls of white vinegar and one of salt to about every half gallon of water. Let the fruit be well covered and then drained; MEL (418) MIL have ready a syrup made -with the jiiice from pulp and seeds, boil a pound of good loaf sugar with every half-pint of the water, and let it grow cold. Put the pieces of melon into an enamelled pan with the cold syrup, make it gradually hot, and when ready to boU simmer and skim for about twelve or fifteen minutes, when the fruit should be put into a bowl carefully, and the syrup thrown over. For three successive days pour off the syrup, and boil for two minutes on the third and last time. Add an ounce of bruised ginger, arrange the melon in large wide-mouthed glass bottles, pour the syrup over, and when cold tie down with bladder. Time, a quarter of an hour to boil the syrup.