Instead of cloves you may stick the peaches with blades of mace, six blades to each peach.
Apricots may be pickled as above. Morella cherries also, using mace instead of cloves.
If you find a coat of mould on the top of a jar of pickles, remove it carefully, and do not throw away the pickles, as they may still be quite good beneath.
CUCUMBER CATCHUP.--For a small quantity, take twelve fine full-grown cucumbers, and lay them an hour in cold water. Then pare them, and grate them down into a deep dish. Grate also six small onions, and mix them with the grated cucumber. Season the mixture to your taste, with pepper, salt, and vinegar; making it of the consistence of rich marmalade or jam. When thoroughly incorporated, transfer it to a glass jar, cover it closely, tying down over the top a piece of bladder, so as to make it perfectly air-tight.
It will be found very nice (when fresh cucumbers are not in season) to eat with beef or mutton, and if properly made and tightly covered will keep well. It should be grated very fine, and the vinegar must be of excellent quality--real cider vinegar.
ONION CUSTARD.--Peel and slice some mild onions, (ten or twelve, in proportion to their size,) and fry them in fresh butter; draining them well when you take them up. Then mince them as fine as possible. Beat four eggs very light, and stir them gradually into a pint of milk, in turn with the minced onions. Season the whole with plenty of grated nutmeg, and stir it very hard. Then put it into a deep, white dish, and bake it about a quarter of an hour. Send it to table as a side dish to be eaten with meat or poultry. It is a French preparation of onions, and will be found very fine.
STEWED LAMB.--Take a fine quarter of lamb, and for a large dish, cut the whole of it into steaks; for a small dish, cut up the loin only; or slice only the leg. Remove the skin, and all the fat. Place at the bottom of a large stew-pot a fresh lettuce split into long quarters. Having seasoned the steaks with a little salt and cayenne, and some powdered nutmeg and mace, lay them upon the lettuce, pour on just sufficient water to cover the whole, and let it stew gently for an hour, skimming it occasionally. Then put in a quart or two of young green peas, (in proportion to the quantity of meat,) a sprig of fresh green mint, a lump of loaf-sugar, and some bits of fresh butter. Let it cook slowly about half an hour longer, or till the peas are all soft and well-done. In sending it to table, place the meat upon the lettuce, and the peas round it.