TO PICKLE EGGS.
407. INGREDIENTS.—16 eggs, 1 quart of vinegar, 1/2 oz. of Black pepper, 1/2 oz. of Jamaica pepper, 1/2 oz. of ginger.
Mode.—Boil the eggs for 12 minutes, then dip them into cold water, and take off the shells. Put the vinegar, with the pepper and ginger, into a stewpan, and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Now place the eggs in a jar, pour over them the vinegar, &c., boiling hot, and, when cold, tie them down with bladder to exclude the air. This pickle will be ready for use in a month.
Average cost, for this quantity, 1s. 9d.
Seasonable.—This should be made about Easter, as at this time eggs are plentiful and cheap. A store of pickled eggs will be found very useful and ornamental in serving with many first and second course dishes.
[Illustration: GINGER.]
The ginger-plant, known to naturalists as Zingiber officinale, is a native, of the East and West Indies. It grows somewhat like the lily of the valley, but its height is about three feet. In Jamaica it flowers about August or September, fading about the end of the year. The fleshy creeping roots, which form the ginger of commerce, are in a proper state to be dug when the stalks are entirely withered. This operation is usually performed in January and February; and when the roots are taken out of the earth, each one is picked, scraped, separately washed, and afterwards very carefully dried. Ginger is generally considered as less pungent and heating to the system than might he expected from its effects on the organs of taste, and it is frequently used, with considerable effect, as an anti-spasmodic and carminative.