This is a useful and cheap preserve. Choose the large long black plum; to each gallon of which add three pounds of good moist sugar; bake them till they begin to crack, when, put them in pots, of a size for once using, as the air is apt to spoil the jam.
The best vinegar should always be used for pickling; in all cases it should be boiled and strained.
The articles to be pickled should first be parboiled or soaked in brine, which should have about six ounces of salt to one quart of water.
The spices used for pickling are whole pepper, long peppers, allspice, mace, mustard-seed, and ginger, the last being first bruised.
The following is a good proportion of spice: to one quart of vinegar put half an ounce of ginger, the same quantity of whole-pepper and allspice, and one ounce of mustard-seed; four shalots, and one clove of garlic.
Pickles should be kept secure from the air, or they soon become soft; the least quantity of water, or a wet spoon, put into a jar of pickles, will spoil the contents.
These are, of all vegetables, the most difficult to pickle, so that their green colour and freshness may be preserved. Choose some fine fresh gherkins, and set them to soak in brine for a week; then drain them, and pour over boiling vinegar, prepared with the usual spices, first having covered them with fresh vine leaves. If they do not appear to be of a fine green, pour off the vinegar, boil it up again, cover the gherkins with fresh green vine leaves, and pour over the vinegar again. French beans are pickled exactly the same.
Remove the stalks and leaves, break the flower into pieces, parboil them in brine, then drain them, and lay them in a jar, and pour over boiling spiced vinegar.
Cut the melons in half, remove the pulpy part and the seeds, soak the halves for a week in strong brine, then fill them with the usual spices, mustard-seed and garlic, and tie them together with packthread; put them in jars, and pour over boiling spiced vinegar. Large cucumbers may be pickled in the same way.
Pickle gherkins, French beans, and cauliflower, separately, as already directed; the other vegetables used are carrots, onions, capsicums, white cabbage, celery, and, indeed almost any kind may be put into this pickle, except walnuts and red cabbage. They must be cut in small pieces, and soaked in brine, the carrots only, requiring to be boiled in it to make them tender; then prepare a liquor as follows: into half a gallon of vinegar put two ounces of ginger, one of whole black pepper, one of whole allspice, and one of bruised chillies, three ounces of shalots, and one ounce of garlic; boil together nearly twenty minutes; mix a little of it in a basin, with two ounces of flour of mustard and one ounce of turmeric, and stir it in gradually with the rest; then pour the liquor over the vegetables.