The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary Part 27

There should be holes in the pail, to let off the ice as it thaws. When any fluid tends towards cold, moving it quickly will encrease that tendency; and likewise, when any fluid is tending to heat, stirring it will facilitate its boiling.

ICE CREAMS. Mix the juice of the fruits with as much sugar as will be wanted, before the cream is added, and let the cream be of a middling richness.

ICE WATERS. Rub some fine sugar on lemon or orange, to give the colour and flavour; then squeeze the juice of either on its respective peel.

Add water and sugar to make a fine sherbet, and strain it before it be put into the ice-pot. If orange, the greater proportion should be of the china juice, and only a little of seville, and a small bit of the peel grated by the sugar. The juice of currants or raspberries, or any other sort of fruit, being squeezed out, sweetened, and mixed with water, may be prepared for iceing in the same way.

ICEING FOR CAKES. Beat and sift half a pound of fine sugar, put it into a mortar with four spoonfuls of rose water, and the whites of two eggs beaten and strained. Whisk it well, and when the cake is almost cold, dip a feather in the iceing, and cover the cake well. Set it in the oven to harden, but suffer it not to remain to be discoloured, and then keep it in a dry place.--For a very large cake, beat up the whites of twenty fresh eggs, and reduce to powder a pound of double refined sugar, sifted through a lawn sieve. Mix these well in a deep earthen pan, add orange flower water, barely sufficient to give it a flavour, and a piece of fresh lemon peel. Whisk it for three hours till the mixture is thick and white, then with a thin broad piece of board spread it all over the top and sides, and set it in a cool oven, and an hour will harden it.

ICEING FOR TARTS. Beat well together the yolk of an egg and some melted b.u.t.ter, smear the tarts with a feather, and sift sugar over them as they are put into the oven. Or beat up the white of an egg, wash the paste with it, and sift over some white sugar.

ILIAC Pa.s.sION. This dangerous malady, in which the motion of the bowels is totally impeded or inverted, arises from spasms, violent exertions of the body, eating of unripe fruit, drinking of sour liquors, worms, obstinate costiveness, and various other causes, which produce the most excruciating pain in the region of the abdomen. Large blisters applied to the most painful part, emollient clysters, fomentations, and the warm bath, are amongst the most likely means; but in many instances, this disorder is not to be controuled by medicine. No remedy however can be applied with greater safety or advantage, than frequent doses of castor oil: and if this fail, quicksilver in a natural state is the only medicine on which any reliance can be placed.

IMPERIAL. Put into a stone jar two ounces of cream of tartar, and the juice and paring of two lemons. Pour on them seven quarts of boiling water, stir it well, and cover it close. When cold, sweeten it with loaf sugar; strain, bottle, and cork it tight. This makes a very pleasant and wholesome liquor; but if drunk too freely, it becomes injurious. In bottling it off, add half a pint of rum to the whole quant.i.ty.

IMPERIAL CREAM. Boil a quart of cream with the thin rind of a lemon, and stir it till nearly cold. Have ready in a dish or bowl, in which it is to be served, the juice of three lemons strained, mixed with as much sugar as will sweeten the cream. Pour this into the dish from a large tea-pot, holding it high, and moving it about to mix with the juice. It should be made at least six hours before it is used; and if the day before, it would be still better.

IMPERIAL WATER. Put into an earthen pan, four ounces of sugar, and the rind of three lemons. Boil an ounce of cream of tartar in three quarts of water, and pour it on the sugar and lemon. Let it stand all night, clear it through a bag, and bottle it.

INCENSE. Compound in a marble mortar, a large quant.i.ty of lignum rhodium, and anise, with a little powder of dried orange peel, and gum benzoin. Add some gum dragon dissolved in rose water, and a little civet. Beat the whole together, form the mixture into small cakes, and place them on paper to dry. One of these cakes being burnt, will diffuse an agreeable odour throughout the largest apartment.

INDELIBLE INK. Gum arabic dissolved in water, and well mixed with fine ivory black, will make writing indelible. If the writing be afterwards varnished over with the white of an egg clarified, it will preserve it to any length of time.

INDIAN PICKLE. Lay a pound of white ginger in water one night; then sc.r.a.pe, slice, and lay it in salt in a pan, till the other ingredients are prepared. Peel and slice a pound of garlic, lay it in salt three days, and afterwards dry it in the sun. Salt and dry some long pepper in the same way: then prepare various sorts of vegetables in the following manner. Quarter some small white cabbages, salt them three days, then squeeze and lay them in the sun to dry. Cut some cauliflowers into branches, take off the green part of radishes, cut celery into lengths of about three inches, put in young French beans whole, and the shoots of elder, which will look like bamboo. Choose apples and cuc.u.mbers of a sort the least seedy, quarter them, or cut them in slices. All must be salted, drained, and dried in the sun, except the latter, over which some boiling vinegar must be poured. In twelve hours drain them, but use no salt. Put the spice into a large stone jar, adding the garlic, a quarter of a pound of mustard seed, an ounce of turmeric, and vinegar sufficient for the quant.i.ty of pickle. When the vegetables are dried and ready, the following directions must be observed. Put some of them into a half-gallon stone jar, and pour over them a quart of boiling vinegar.

Next day take out those vegetables; and when drained, put them into a large stock jar. Boil the vinegar, pour it over some more of the vegetables, let them lie all night, and complete the operation as before. Thus proceed till each set is cleansed from the dust they may have contracted. Then to every gallon of vinegar, put two ounces of flour of mustard, gradually mixing in a little of it boiling hot, and stop the jar tight. The whole of the vinegar should be previously scalded, and set to cool before it is put to the spice. This pickle will not be ready for a year, but a small quant.i.ty may be got ready for eating in a fortnight, by only giving the cauliflower one scald in water, after salting and drying as above, but without the preparative vinegar: then pour the vinegar, which has the spice and garlic, boiling hot over it. If at any time it be found that the vegetables have not swelled properly, boiling the pickle, and pouring it hot over them, will make them plump.--Another way. Cut the heads of some good cauliflowers into pieces, and add some slices of the inside of the stalk. Put to them a white cabbage cut in pieces, with inside slices of carrot, turnips, and onions. Boil a strong brine of salt and water, simmer the vegetables in it one minute, drain them, and dry them on tins over an oven till they are shriveled up; then put them into a jar, and prepare the following pickle. To two quarts of good vinegar, put an ounce of the flour of mustard, one of ginger, one of long pepper, four of cloves, a few shalots, and a little horseradish. Boil the vinegar, put the vegetables into a jar, and pour it hot over them. When cold, tie them down, and add more vinegar afterwards, if necessary. In the course of a week or two, the pickle will be fit for use.

INDIGESTION. Persons of weak delicate habits, particularly the sedentary and studious, are frequently subject to indigestion. The liberal use of cold water alone, in drinking, was.h.i.+ng, and bathing, is often sufficient to effect a cure. Drinking of sea water, gentle purgatives, with bark and bitters, light and nouris.h.i.+ng food, early rising, and gentle exercise in the open air, are also of great importance.

INFECTION. During the prevalence of any infectious disease, every thing requires to be kept perfectly clean, and the sick room to be freely ventilated. The door or window should generally be open, the bed curtains only drawn to shade the light, clothes frequently changed and washed in cold water, all discharges from the patient instantly removed, and the floor near the bed rubbed every day with a wet cloth. Take also a hot brick, lay it in an earthen pan, and pour pickle vinegar upon it.

This will refresh the patient, as well as purify the surrounding atmosphere. Those who are obliged to attend the patients, should not approach them fasting, nor inhale their breath; and while in their apartment, should avoid eating and drinking, and swallowing their own saliva. It will also be of considerable service to smell vinegar and camphor, to fumigate the room with tobacco, and to chew myrrh and cinnamon, which promote a plentiful discharge from the mouth. As soon as a person has returned from visiting an infected patient, he ought immediately to wash his mouth and hands with vinegar, to change his clothes, and expose them to the fresh air; and to drink an infusion of sage, or other aromatic herbs. After the disorder has subsided, the walls of the room should be washed with hot lime, which will render it perfectly sweet.

INFLAMMATIONS. In external inflammations, attended with heat and swelling of the part affected, cooling applications and a little opening medicine are the best adapted; and in some cases, cataplasms of warm emollient herbs may be used with advantage.

INFLAMMATION OF THE EYES. In this case leeches should be applied to the temples; and after the bleeding has ceased, a small blister may be tried, with a little opening medicine. Much benefit has been derived from shaving the head, cutting the hair, and bathing the feet in warm water. If the inflammation has arisen from particles of iron or steel falling into the eyes, the offending matter is best extracted by the application of the loadstone. If eyes are blood-shotten, the necessary rules are, an exclusion from light, cold fomentations, and abstinence from animal food and stimulating liquors. For a bruise in the eye, occasioned by any accident, the best remedy is a rotten apple, and some conserve of roses. Fold them in a piece of thin cambric, apply it to the part affected, and it will take out the bruise.

INFLAMMATION OF THE BOWELS. This is a complaint that requires great care. If the belly be swelled, and painful to the touch, apply flannels to it, dipped in hot water and wrung out, or use a warm bath. A blister should be employed as soon as possible, and mild emollient injections of gruel or barley water, till stools be obtained. The patient should be placed between blankets, and supplied with light gruel; and when the violence of the disorder is somewhat abated, the pain may be removed by opiate clysters. A common bread and milk poultice, applied as warm as possible to the part affected, has also been attended with great success: but as this disorder is very dangerous, it would be proper to call in medical a.s.sistance without delay.

INK. To make an excellent writing ink, take a pound of the best Aleppo galls, half a pound of copperas, a quarter of a pound of gum arabic, and a quarter of a pound of white sugar candy. Bruise the galls and beat the other ingredients fine, and infuse them together in three quarts of rain water. Let the mixture stand by the fire three or four days, and then boil it gently over a slow fire; or if infused in cold water, and afterwards well strained, it will nearly answer the same purpose. Care must be taken to obtain good materials, and to mix them in due proportion. To preserve the ink from mouldiness, it should be put into a large gla.s.s bottle with a ground stopper, and frequently shaked; but if a crust be formed, it should be carefully taken out, and not mixed with the ink. A little more gum and sugar candy may be added, to render the ink more black and glossy; but too much will make it sticky, and unfit for use.--Another method is to bruise a pound of good galls, black and heavy, and put them into a stone jar. Then pour on a gallon of rain water, nearly of a boiling heat, and let it stand by the fire about a fortnight. Afterwards add four ounces of green copperas or sulphate of iron, four ounces of logwood shavings, one ounce of alum, one of sugar candy, and four of gum arabic. Let the whole remain about two days longer in a moderate heat, stir the ingredients together once or twice a day, and keep the jar slightly covered. The ink is then to be strained through a flannel, put into a bottle with a little brandy at the top, well corked, and set by for use in a temperate place. A few cloves bruised with gum arabic, and put into the bottle, will prevent the ink from getting mouldy; and if some of superior quality be required, white wine or vinegar must be used instead of water.

INK POWDER. For the convenience of travellers by sea or by land, ink powders have been invented, which consist of nothing else than the substances employed in the composition of common ink, pounded and pulverized, so that it be instantaneously converted into ink by mixing it up with a little water. Walkden's ink powder is by far the best.

INK STAINS. The stains of ink, on cloth, paper, or wood, may be removed by almost all acids; but those acids are to be preferred, which are least likely to injure the texture of the stained substance. The muriatic acid, diluted with five or six times its weight of water, may be applied to the spot; and after a minute or two, may be washed off, repeating the application as often as it is found necessary. But the vegetable acids are attended with less risk, and are equally effectual.

A solution of lemon or tartareous acid, in water, may be applied to the most delicate fabrics, without any danger of injuring them: and the same solution will discharge writing, but not printing ink. Hence they may be employed in cleaning books which have been defaced by writing on the margin, without impairing the text. Lemon juice and the juice of sorrel will also remove ink stains, but not so easily as the concrete acid of lemons, or citric acid. On some occasions it will be found sufficient, only to dip the spotted part in the fine melted tallow of a mould candle, and afterwards wash it in the usual way.

INSECTS. The most effectual remedy against the whole tribe of insects, which prey upon plants and vegetables, is the frequent use of sulphur, which should be dusted upon the leaves through a muslin rag or dredging box, or fumed on a chaffing dish of burning charcoal. This application will also improve the healthiness of plants, as well as destroy their numerous enemies. Another way is to boil together an equal quant.i.ty of rue, wormwood, and tobacco, in common water, so as to make the liquor strong, and then to sprinkle it on the leaves every morning and evening.

By pouring boiling water on some tobacco and the tender shoots of elder, a strong decoction may also be made for this purpose, and shed upon fruit trees with a brush: the quant.i.ty, about an ounce of tobacco and two handfuls of elder to a gallon of water. Elder water sprinkled on honeysuckles and roses, will prevent insects from lodging on them. If a quant.i.ty of wool happen to be infected with insects, it may be cleansed in the following manner. Dissolve a pound of alum, and as much cream of tartar, in a quart of boiling water, and add two full gallons of cold water to it. The wool is then to be soaked in it for several days, and afterwards to be washed and dried.

INSIDE OF A SIRLOIN. Cut out all the meat and a little fat, of the inside of a cold sirloin of beef, and divide it into pieces of a finger's size and length. Dredge the meat with flour, and fry it in b.u.t.ter, of a nice brown. Drain the b.u.t.ter from the meat, and toss it up in a rich gravy, seasoned with pepper, salt, anchovy, and shalot. It must not be suffered to boil; and before serving, add two spoonfuls of vinegar. Garnish with crimped parsley.

INVISIBLE INK. Boil half an ounce of gold litharge well pounded, with a little vinegar in a bra.s.s vessel for half an hour. Filter the liquid through paper, and preserve it in a bottle closely corked. This ink is to be used with a clean pen, and the writing when dry will become invisible. But if at any time it be washed over with the following mixture, it will instantly become black and legible. Put some quicklime and red orpiment in water, place some warm ashes under it for a whole day, filter the liquor, and cork it down. Whenever applied in the slightest degree, it will render the writing visible.

IRISH BEEF. To twenty pounds of beef, put one ounce of allspice, a quarter of an ounce of mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and half an ounce each of pepper and saltpetre. Mix all together, and add some common salt. Put the meat into a salting pan, turn it every day, and rub it with the seasoning. After a month take out the bone, and boil the meat in the liquor it was pickled in, with a proper quant.i.ty of water. It may be stuffed with herbs, and eaten cold.

IRISH PANCAKES. Beat eight yolks and four whites of eggs, strain them into a pint of cream, sweeten with sugar, and add a grated nutmeg. Stir three ounces of b.u.t.ter over the fire, and as it melts pour it to the cream, which should be warm when the eggs are put to it. Mix it smooth with nearly half a pint of flour, and fry the pancakes very thin; the first with a bit of b.u.t.ter, but not the others. Serve up several at a time, one upon another.

IRISH STEW. Take five thick mutton chops, or two pounds off the neck or loin; four pounds of potatoes, peeled and divided; and half a pound of onions, peeled and sliced. Put a layer of potatoes at the bottom of a stewpan, then a couple of chops, and some of the onions, and so on till the pan is quite full. Add a small spoonful of white pepper, about one and a half of salt, and three quarters of a pint of broth or gravy.

Cover all close down, so as to prevent the escape of steam, and let them stew two hours on a very slow fire. It must not be suffered to burn, nor be done too fast: a small slice of ham will be an agreeable addition.

IRON MOULDS. Wet the injured part, rub on a little of the essential salt of lemons, and lay it on a hot waterplate. If the linen becomes dry, wet it and renew the process, observing that the plate is kept boiling hot.

Much of the powder sold under the name of salt of lemons is a spurious preparation, and therefore it is necessary to dip the linen in a good deal of water, and to wash it as soon as the stain is removed, in order to prevent the part from being worn into holes by the acid.

IRON POTS. To cure cracks or fissures in iron pots or pans, mix some finely sifted lime with whites of eggs well beaten, till reduced to a paste. Add some iron file dust, and apply the composition to the injured part, and it will soon become hard and fit for use.

IRON AND STEEL. Various kinds of polished articles, in iron and steel, are in danger of being rusted and spoiled, by an exposure to air and moisture. A mixture of nearly equal quant.i.ties of fat, oil varnish, and the rectified spirits of turpentine, applied with a sponge, will give a varnish to those articles, which prevents their contracting any spots of rust, and preserves their brilliancy, even though exposed to air and water. Common articles of steel or iron may be preserved from injury by a composition of one pound of fresh lard, an ounce of camphor, two drams of black lead powder, and two drams of dragon's blood in fine powder, melted over a slow fire, and rubbed on with a brush or sponge, after it has been left to cool.

ISINGLa.s.s JELLY. Boil an ounce of isingla.s.s in a quart of water, with a few cloves, lemon peel, or wine, till it is reduced to half the quant.i.ty. Then strain it, and add a little sugar and lemon juice.

ISSUE OINTMENT. For dressing blisters, in order to keep them open, make an ointment of half an ounce of Spanish flies finely powdered, mixed with six ounces of yellow basilicon ointment.