Kenelm Digby - The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened

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TO MAKE SLIPP-COAT-CHEESE

Master Phillips his Method and proportions in making slippe-coat Cheese,
are these. Take six wine quarts of stroakings, and two quarts of Cream;
mingle these well together, and let them stand in a bowl, till they are
cold. Then power upon them three pints of boiling fair water, and mingle
them well together; then let them stand, till they are almost cold, colder
then milk-warm. Then put to it a moderate quantity of Runnet, made with
fair water (not whey, or any other thing then water; this is an important
point), and let it stand till it come. Have a care not to break the Curds,
nor ever to touch them with your hands, but only with your skimming dish.
In due time lade the Curds with the dish, into a thin fine Napkin, held up
by two persons, that the whey may run from them through the bunt of the
Napkin, which you rowl gently about, that the Curds may dry without
breaking. When the whey is well drained out, put the Curds as whole as you
can into the Cheese-fat, upon a napkin, in the fat. Change the Napkin, and
turn the Cheese every quarter of an hour, and less, for ten, twelve or
fourteen times; that is, still as soon as you perceive the Napkin wet with
the whay running from the Curds. Then press it with a half pound weight for
two or three hours. Then add half a pound more for as long time, then
another half pound for as long, and lastly another half pound, which is two
pounds in all; which weight must never be exceeded. The next day, (when
about twenty four hours are past in all) salt your Cheese moderately with
white Salt, and then turn it but three or four times a day, and keep it in
a cotton cloth, which will make it mellow and sweet, not rank, and will
preserve the coat smooth. It may be ready to eat in about twelve days. Some
lay it to ripen in dock-leaves, and it is not amiss; but that in rain they
will be wet, which moulds the Cheese. Others in flat fit boxes of wood,
turning them, as is said, three or four times a day. But a cotton cloth is
best. This quantity is for a round large Cheese, of about the bigness of a
sale ten peny Cheese, a good fingers-breadth thick. Long broad grass
ripeneth them well, and sucketh out the moisture. Rushes are good also.
They are hot, but dry not the moisture so well.

My Lady of Middlesex makes excellent slipp-coat Cheese of good morning
milk, putting Cream to it. A quart of Cream is the proportion she useth to
as much milk, as both together make a large round Cheese of the bigness of
an ordinary Tart-plate, or Cheese-plate; as big as an ordinary soft cheese,
that the Market-women sell for ten pence. Thus for want of stroakings at
London, you may take one part of Cream to five or six of morning milk, and
for the rest proceed as with stroakings; and these will prove as good.

SLIPP-COAT CHEESE

Take three quarts of the last of the stroakings of as many Cows as you
have; keep it covered, that it may continue warm; put to it a skimming
dishful of Spring-water; then put in two spoonfuls of Runnet, so let it
stand until it be hard come: when it is hard come, set your fat on the
bottome of a hair-sieve, take it up by degrees, but break it not; when you
have laid it all in the fat, take a fine cloth, and lay it over the Cheese,
and work it in about the sides, with the back of a Knife; then lay a board
on it, for half an hour: after half an hour, set on the board an half pound
stone, so let it stand two hours; then turn it on that board, and let the
cloth be both under and over it, then pour it into the fat again; Then lay
a pound and half weight on it; Two hours after turn it again on a dry
cloth, and salt it, then set on it two pound weight, and let it stand until
the next morning. Then turn it out of the Cheese-fat, on a dry board, and
so keep it with turning on dry boards three days. In case it run abroad,
you must set it up with wedges; when it begins to stiffen, lay green grass
or rushes upon it: when it is stiff enough, let rushes be laid both under
and over it. If this Cheese be rightly made, and the weather good to dry
it, it will be ready in eight days: but in case it doth not dry well, you
must lay it on linnen-cloth, and woollen upon it, to hasten the ripening of
it.

TO MAKE A SCALDED CHEESE

Take six gallons of new milk: put to it two quarts of the evening Cream;
then put to it good runnet for winter Cheese; let it stand, till it be even
well, then sink it as long as you can get any whey out: then put it into
your fat, and set it in the press, and let it stand half an hour: in this
time turn it once. When you take it out of the Press, set on the fire two
gallons of the same whey; then put your Cheese in a big bowl, break the
Curd as small with your hands as you do your Cheese-cakes: when your whey
is scalding hot, take off the scum: lay your strainer over the Curd, and
put in your whey: take a slice, and stir up your Curd, that it may scald
all alike: put in as much whey as will cover it well: if you find that
cold, put it out, and put in more to it that is hot. Stir it as before:
then cover it with a linnen and woollen cloth: then set some new whey on
the fire, put in your Cheese-fat and suter and cloth. After three quarters
of an hour, take up the Curd, and put it into the Cheese fat, as fast, as
two can work it in: then put it into the hot cloth, and set it into the
Press. Have a care to look to it, and after a while turn it, and so keep it
in the press with turning, till the next day: then take it forth and Salt
it.

THE CREAM-COURDS

Strain your Whey, and set it on the fire: make a clear and gentle fire
under the kettle: as they rise, put in whey, so continuing, till they are
ready to skim. Then take your skimmer, and put them on the bottom of a
hair-sieve: so let them drain till they are cold. Then take them off, and
put them into a bason, and beat them with three or four spoonfuls of Cream
and Sugar.

SAVOURY TOSTED OR MELTED CHEESE

Cut pieces of quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of Brye,
Cheshire, &c. or sharp thick Cream-Cheese) into a dish of thick beaten
melted Butter, that hath served for Sparages or the like, or pease, or
other boiled Sallet, or ragout of meat, or gravy of Mutton: and, if you
will, Chop some of the Asparages among it, or slices of Gambon of Bacon, or
fresh-collops, or Onions, or Sibboulets, or Anchovis, and set all this to
melt upon a Chafing-dish of Coals, and stir all well together, to
Incorporate them; and when all is of an equal consistence, strew some gross
White-Pepper on it, and eat it with tosts or crusts of White-bread. You may
scorch it at the top with a hot Fire-Shovel.

TO FEED CHICKEN

First give them for two days paste made of Barley Meal and Milk with
Clyster Sugar to scowre them. Then feed them with nothing but hashed
Raisins of the Sun. The less drink they have, the better it is: for it
washeth away their fat; but that little they have, let it be broken Beer;
Milk were as good or better; but then you must be careful to have it
always sweet in their trough, and no sowerness there to turn the Milk.
They will be prodigiously fat in about twelve days: And you must kill them,
when they are at their height: Else they will soon fall back, and grow fat
no more.

Others make their Paste of Barley meal with Milk and a little course Sugar,
and mingle with it a little (about an eight part) of powder of green Glass
beaten exceeding small. Give this only for two days to cleanse their
stomacks. Then feed them with paste of Barley-meal, made sometimes with
Milk and Sugar, and sometimes with the fat skimmed off from the pot, giving
them drink as above.

Others make a pretty stiff paste for them with Barley-meal (a little of the
coursest bran sifted from it) and the fat scummed off from the boiling pot,
be it of Beef (even salted) or Mutton, &c. Lay this before them for their
food for four days. Then give them still the same, but mingled with a
little powder of Glass for 4 or five days more. In which time they will be
extremely fat and good. For their drink, give them the droppings of good
Ale or good Beer. When you eat them, you will find some of the powder of
glass in their stomacks, i.e. gizzards.

TO FEED POULTRY

My Lady Fanshaws way of feeding Capons, Pullets, Hens, Chickens or Turkies,
is thus. Have Coops, wherein every fowl is a part, and not room to turn in,
and means to cleanse daily the ordure behind them, and two troughs; for
before that, one may be scalding and drying the day the other is used, and
before every fowl one partition for meat, another for drink. All their
Meat is this: Boil Barley in water, till it be tender, keep some so, and
another parcel of it boil with Milk, and another with strong Ale. Let them
be boiled as wheat that is creed. Use them different days for variety, to
get the fowl appetite. Lay it in their trough, with some Brown-Sugar
mingled with it. In the partition for Liquor, let them have water or strong
Ale to drink. They will be very drunk and sleep; then eat again. Let a
Candle stand all night over the Coop, and then they will eat much of the
night. With this course they will be prodigiously fat in a fortnight. Be
sure to keep them very sweet. This maketh the taste pure.

ANOTHER WAY OF FEEDING CHICKEN

Take Barley meal, and with droppings of small Ale, (or Ale it self) make it
into a consistence of batter for Pan-cakes. Let this be all their food.
Which put into the troughs before them, renewing it thrice a day, morning,
noon and evening; making their troughs very clean every time, and keeping
their Coops always very clean and sweet. This is to serve them for drink as
well as meat, and no other drink be given them. Feed them thus six days;
the seventh give them nothing in their troughs but powder of brick searced,
which scowreth and cleanseth them much, and makes their flesh exceeding
white. The next day fall to their former food for six days more, and the
seventh again to powder of Brick. Then again to barley Meal and Ale. Thus
they will be exceeding fat in fifteen days, and purely white and sweet.

TO FATTEN YOUNG CHICKENS IN A WONDERFULL DEGREE

Boil Rice in Milk till it be very tender and Pulpy, as when you make Milk
Potage. It must be thick, almost so thick, that a spoon may stand an-end in
it. Sweeten this very well with ordinary Sugar. Put this into their troughs
where they feed, that they may be always eating of it. It must be made
fresh every day. Their drink must be onely Milk, in another little trough
by their meat-trough. Let a candle (fitly disposed) stand by them all
night; for seeing their meat, they will eat all night long. You put the
Chicken up, as soon as they can feed of themselves; which will be within a
day or two after they are hatched, and in twelve days, or a fortnight, they
will be prodigiously fat; but after they have come to their height, they
will presently fall back. Therefore they must be eaten as soon as they are
come to their height. Their Pen or Coop must be contrived so, that the Hen
(who must be with them, to sit over them) may not go at liberty to eat away
their meat, but be kept to her own diet, in a part of the Coop that she
cannot get out of. But the Chicken must have liberty to go from her to
other parts of the Coop, where they may eat their own meat, and come in
again to the Hen, to be warmed by her, at their pleasure. You must be
careful to keep their Coop very clean.

TO FEED CHICKEN

Fatten your Chicken the first week with Oatmeal scalded in Milk; the second
with Rice and Sugar in Milk. In a fortnight they will be prodigiously fat.
It is good to give them sometimes a little Gravel, or powder of Glass, to
cleanse their maws, and give them appetite.

If you put a little bran with their meat, it will keep their maws clean,
and give them appetite.

ANOTHER EXCELLENT WAY TO FATTEN CHICKEN

Boil white bread in Milk, as though you were to eat it; but make it thick
of the bread, which is sliced into it in thin slices, not so thick as if it
were to make a pudding; but so, that when the bread is eaten out, there may
some liquid milk remain for the Chicken to drink; or that at first you may
take up some liquid Milk in a spoon, if you industriously avoid the bread:
sweeten very well this potage with good Kitchin Sugar of six pence a pound;
so put it into the trough before them. Put there but a little at a time,
(two or three spoonfuls) that you may not clog them, and feed them five
times a day, between their wakening in the morning, and their roosting at
night. Give them no other drink; the Milk that remaineth after they have
eaten the bread, is sufficient; neither give them Gravel, or ought else.
Keep their Coops very clean, as also their troughs, cleansing them very
well every morning. To half a dozen very little Chickens, little bigger
then black-birds, an ordinary porenger full every day may serve. And in
eight days they will be prodigiously fat, one peny loaf, and less then two
quarts of Milk and about half a pound of Sugar will serve little ones the
whole time. Bigger Chickens will require more, and two or three days longer
time. When any of them are at their height of fat, you must eat them; for
if they live longer, they will fall back, and grow lean. Be sure to make
their potage very sweet.

AN EXCELLENT WAY TO CRAM CHICKEN

Stone a pound of Raisins of the Sun, and beat them in a Mortar to Pulp;
pour a quart of Milk upon them, and let them soak so all night. Next
morning stir them well together, and put to them so much Crums of Grated
stale white bread as to bring it to a soft paste, work all well together,
and lay it in the trough before the Chicken (which must not be above six in
a pen, and keep it very clean) and let a candle be by them all night. The
delight of this meat will make them eat continually; and they will be so
fat (when they are but of the bigness of a Black-bird) that they will not
be able to stand, but lie down upon their bellies to eat.

TO FEED PARTRIDGES THAT YOU HAVE TAKEN WILDE

You must often change their food, giving them but of one kind at a time,
that so their appetites may be fresh to the others, when they are weary of
the present. Sometimes dry wheat; Sometimes wheat soaked two or three days
in water, to make it soft and tender; Sometimes barley so used; Sometimes
oats in like manner. Give them continually to lie by them; Some of the
great green leaves of Cabbages, that grow at the bottom of the stalk, and
that are thrown away, when you gather the Cabbage; which you may give them
either whole or a little chopped. Give them often Ants and their Eggs,
laying near them the inward mould of an Ant hill, taken up with the Ants in
it.

TO MAKE PUFFS

Take new milk Curds, strained well from the whey; then rub them very well;
season them with Nutmeg, Mace, Rose-water and Sugar; then take an Egg or
two, a good piece of Butter, and a handful of flower; work all together,
and make them into Balls; bake them in an oven, upon sheets of Paper; when
they are baked, serve them up with butter melted and beaten with Rose-water
and Sugar. In stead of flower, you may take fine grated-bread, dried very
well, but not Crisp.

APPLES IN GELLY

My Lady Paget makes her fine preserved Pippins, thus: They are done best,
when Pippins are in their prime for quickness, which is in November. Make
your Pippin-water as strong as you can of the Apples, and that it may be
the less boiled, and consequently the paler, put in at first the greatest
quantity of pared and quartered Apples, the water will bear. To every Pint
of Pippin-water add (when you put the Sugar to it) a quarter of a pint of
fair spring-water, that will bear soap (of which sort only you must use)
and use half a pound of Sugar, the purest double refined. If you will have
much gelly, two Pippins finely pared and whole, will be enough; you may put
in more, if you will have a greater proportion of substance to the gelly.
Put at first but half the Sugar to the Liquor; for so it will be the paler.
Boil the Apples by themselves in fair water, with a very little Sugar, to
make them tender; then put them into the liquor, and the rest, the other
half of the Sugar with them. Boil them with a quick fire, till they be
enough, and the liquor do gelly, and that you see the Apples look very
clear, and as though they were transparent. You must put the juyce of two
Limons and half an Orange to this in the due time. Every Pippin should be
lapped over in a broad-pill of Orange; which you must prepare thus. Pare
your Orange broad and very thin, and all hanging together, rub it with
Salt, prick it, and boil it in several waters, to take away the bitterness,
and make it tender. Then preserve it by it self with sufficient quantity of
Sugar. When it is throughly done, and very tender (which you must cast to
do before hand, to be ready when the Apples are ready to be put up) take
them out of their Syrup, and lap every Pippin in an Orange-peel, and put
them into a pot or glass, and pour the liquor upon them: which will be
gelly over and about the Apples, when all is cold. This proportion of
liquor, Apples, and Orange-peels, will take up about three quarters of a
pound of Sugar in all. If you would keep them any time, you must put in
weight for weight of Sugar.

I conceive Apple-John's in stead of Pippins will do better, both for the
gelly and Syrup; especially at the latter end of the year; and I like them
thin sliced, rather than whole; and the Orange-peels scattered among them
in little pieces or chipps.

SYRUP OF PIPPINS

Quarter and Core your Pippins; then stamp them in a Mortar, and strain out
the Juyce. Let it settle, that the thick dregs may go to the bottom; then
pour off the clear; and to have it more clear and pure, filter it through
sucking Paper in a glass funnel. To one pound of this take one pound and an
half of pure double refined Sugar, and boil it very gently (scarce
simpringly, and but a very little while) till you have scummed away all the
froth and foulness (which will be but little) and that it be of the
consistence of Syrup. If you put two pound of Sugar to one pound of juyce,
you must boil it more & stronglier. This will keep longer, but the colour
is not so fine. It is of a deeper yellow. If you put but equal parts of
juyce and Sugar, you must not boil it, but set it in a _Cucurbite in
bulliente Balneo_, till all the scum be taken away, and the Sugar well
dissolved. This will be very pale and pleasant, but will not keep long.

You may make your Syrup with a strong decoction of Apples in water (as when
you make gelly of Pippins) when they are green; but when they are old and
mellow, the substance of the Apple will dissolve into pap, by boiling in
water.

Take three or four spoonfuls of this Syrup in a large draught of fountain
water, or small posset-Ale, _pro ardore urinae_ to cool and smoothen, two or
three times a day.

GELLY OF PIPPINS OR JOHN-APPLES

Cut your Apples into quarters (either pared or unpared). Boil them in a
sufficient quantity of water, till it be very strong of the Apples. Take
the clear liquor, and put to it sufficient Sugar to make gelly, and the
slices of Apple; so boil them all together, till the slices be enough, and
the liquor gelly; or you may boil the slices, in Apple-liquor without
Sugar, and make gelly of other liquor, and put the slices into it, when it
is gelly, and they be sufficiently boiled. Either way, you must put at the
last some juyce of Limon to it; and Amber and Musk if you will. You may do
it with halves or quartered Apples, in deep glasses, with store of gelly
about them. To have these clear, take the pieces out of the gelly they are
boiled in, with a slice, so as you may have all the rags run from them, and
then put neat clean pieces into clear gelly.

PRESERVED WARDENS

Pare and Core the Wardens, and put a little of the thin rind of a Limon
into the hole that the Core leaveth. To every pound of Wardens, take half a
pound of Sugar, and half a pint of water. Make a Syrup of your Sugar and
Water; when it is well scummed, put it into a Pewter dish, and your Wardens
into the Syrup, and cover it with another Pewter dish; and so let this boil
very gently, or rather stew, keeping it very well covered, that the steam
get out as little as may be. Continue this, till the Wardens are very
tender, and very red, which may be in five, or six, or seven hours. Then
boil them up to the height the Syrup ought to be to keep: which yet will
not be well above three or four months. The whole secret of making them
red, consisteth in doing them in Pewter, which spoileth other preserves,
and in any other mettal these will not be red. If you will have any Amber
in them, you may to ten or twelve pounds of Wardens, put in about twenty
grains of Amber, and one, or at most, two grains of Musk, ground with a
little Sugar, and so put in at the last. Though the Wardens be not covered
over with the Syrup in the stewing by a good deal, yet the steam, that
riseth and cannot get out, but circulateth, will serve both to stew them,
and to make them red and tender.

SWEET MEAT OF APPLES

My Lady Barclay makes her fine Apple-gelly with slices of John apples.
Sometimes she mingles a few Pippins with the John's to make the Gelly. But
she liketh best the John's single, and the colour is paler. You first fill
the glass with slices round-wise cut, and then the Gelly is poured in to
fill up the vacuities. The Gelly must be boiled to a good stiffness. Then
when it is ready to take from the fire, you put in some juyce of Limon, and
of Orange too, if you like it: but these must not boil; yet it must stand a
while upon the fire stewing in good heat, to have the juyces Incorporate
and Penetrate well. You must also put in some Ambergreece, which doth
exceeding well in this sweet-meat.

A FLOMERY-CAUDLE

When Flomery is made and cold, you may make a pleasant and wholesome caudle
of it, by taking some lumps and spoonfuls of it, and boil it with Ale and
White wine, then sweeten it to your taste with Sugar. There will remain in
the Caudle some lumps of the congealed flomery, which are not ungrateful.

PLEASANT CORDIAL TABLETS, WHICH ARE VERY COMFORTING, AND STRENGTHEN NATURE
MUCH

Take four ounces of blanched Almonds; of Pine kernels, and of Pistachios,
_ana_, four Ounces. Erin-go-roots, Candid-Limon peels, _ana_, three Ounces,
Candid Orange peels two Ounces, Candid Citron-peels four Ounces, of powder
of white Amber, as much as will lie upon a shilling; and as much of the
powder of pearl, 20 grains of Ambergreece, three grains of Musk, a book of
leaf gold, Cloves and Mace, of each as much as will lie upon a three pence;
cut all these as small as possible you can. Then take a pound of Sugar, and
half a pint of water, boil it to a candy-height, then put in the
Ambergreece and Musk, with three or four spoonfulls of Orange flower water.
Then put in all the other things and stir them well together, and cast them
upon plates, and set them to dry: when both sides are dry, take
Orange-flower-water and Sugar, and Ice them.

TO MAKE HARTS-HORN GELLY

Take four Ounces of Harts-horn rasped, boil it in four pound of water, till
it will be a gelly, which you may try upon a plate (it will be so, in four
or five or six hours gentle boiling) and then pass the clear liquor from
the horn (which will be a good quart) then set it on the fire again with
fine Sugar in it to your taste; when that is dissolved (or at the same time
you put that in) put half a pound of white-wine or Sack into it, and a bag
of Spice, containing a little Ginger, a stick of Cinnamon bruised, a Nutmeg
quartered, two or three Cloves, and what other Spice you like, but Pepper.
As soon as it beginneth to boil, put into it the whites of three or four
Eggs beaten, and let it boil up gently, till the Eggs harden into a curd.
Then open it with a spoon, and pour into it the juyce of three or four
good Limons; then take it presently off the fire, letting it not boil more
above a walm: Then run it through a Hippocras bag, putting spirit of
Cinnamon, or of Ambergreece, or what you please to it.

For gelly of flesh you proceed in the same manner, with a brawny Capon or
Cock, and a rouelle of Veal (first skinned, and soaked from the blood) in
stead of Harts-horn: and when the broth will gelly, do as above, using a
double or treble proportion of wine. Boil no Salt in it at first, for that
will make the gelly black.

HARTS-HORN GELLY

Take a pound of Harts-horn, and boil it in five quarts of water, until it
come to three pints, then strain it through a sieve or strainer, and so let
it stand, until it be cold; and according to the strength you may take more
or less of the following Ingredients. First, take your stock of gelly, &
put it into a skillet or pipkin with a pound of fine loaf Sugar, and set it
over a fire of Charcoal; and when it begins to boil, put in a pint or more
of Rhenish-wine. Then take the whites of Eggs six or eight, beaten very
well, with three or four spoonfuls of Rose-water, and put into the gelly.
Then take two grains of Amber, and one grain of Musk, and put thereto, so
let it boil a quarter of an hour, but not too violent; Then put in three or
four spoonfuls of Cinnamon-water, with the juyce of seven or eight Limons;
boil it one walm more, and run it very hot through your gelly-bag; this
done, run it again as cool and softly as you can into your Glasses and
Pots.

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