Beef.
TAKE half a pound of brown sugar, and an ounce of
salt-petre, and rub it into twelve pounds of beef. Let it
lie twenty-four hours; then wash it clean, and dry it well
with a cloth. Season it to your taste with pepper, salt,
and mace, and cut it into five or six pieces. Put it into
an earthen pot, with a pound of butter in lumps upon it,
set it in a hot oven, and let it stand three hours; then
take it out, cut off the hard outsides, and beat it in a
mortar. Add to it a little more pepper, salt, and mace.
Then oil a pound of butter in the gravy and fat that
came from your beef, and put in as you fine necessary;
but beat the meat very fine. Then put it into your pot,
press it close down, pour clarified butter over it, and keep
it in a dry place.
Another method of potting beef, and which will
greatly imitate venison, is this: Take a buttock of beef,
and cut the lean of it into pieces of about a pound weight
each. To eight pounds of beef take four ounces of salt-
petre, the same quantity of bay-salt, half a pound of
white-salt, and an ounce of salt-prunella. Beat all the
salt very fine, mix them well together, and rub them
into the beef. Then let it lie four days, turning it twice
a day. After that put it into a pan, and cover it with
pump water, and a little of its own brine. Send it to the
oven, and bake it till it is tender; then drain it from the
gravy, and take out all the skin and sinews. Pound the
meat well in a mortar, lay it in a board dish, and mix on
it an ounce of cloves and mace, three quarters of an
ounce of pepper, and a nutmeg, all beat very fine. Mix
the whole well with the meat, and add a little clarified
fresh butter to moisten it. Then press it down into pots
very hard, set them at the mouth of the oven just to
settle, and then cover them two inches thick with clarified
butter. When quite cold, cover the pots over with white
paper tied close, and set them in a dry place. It will
keep good a considerable time.