The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened, Sir Kenelm Digby [books to read in a lifetime .txt] 📗

following Ingredients. First, take your stock of gelly, & put it into a skillet or pipkin with a pound of fine loaf Sugar, and set it over a fire of Charcoal; and when it begins to boil, put in a pint or more of Rhenish-wine. Then take the whites of Eggs six or eight, beaten very well, with three or four spoonfuls of Rose-water, and put into the gelly. Then take two grains of Amber, and one grain of Musk, and put thereto, so let it boil a quarter of an hour, but not too violent; Then put in three or four spoonfuls of Cinnamon-water, with the juyce of seven or eight Limons; boil it one walm more, and run it very hot through your gelly-bag; this done, run it again as cool and softly as you can into your Glasses and Pots.


TO MAKE HARTS-HORN GELLY

Take a pound of Harts-horn, and a prety big lean Chicken, and put it into a skillet with about nine quarts of water, and boil your stock prety stiff, so that you may cut it with a knife; you may try it in a spoon, as it is a boiling. Then drain your liquor clear away from the Harts-horn through a fine searse, and let it stand until the next morning; Then if there be any fat upon it, pare it away, and likewise the settlings at the bottom. Then put your Gelly into a good big skillet, and put to it a quart of the palest white-wine that you can procure, or a quart of Rhenish-wine, and one pound of double refined Sugar, and half an Ounce of Cinnamon broken into small pieces, with three or four flakes of Mace. Then set it upon the fire, and boil it a good pace. Then have the whites of sixteen Eggs beaten to a high froth; so put in the froth of your Eggs, and boil it five or six Walms; then put in the juyce of six Limons, and boil it a little while after, and then run it into a silver bason through your gelly-bag: and keep it warm by the fire, until it have run through the second time. You must observe to put but a very little into your bag at a time for the second running, that it may but little more then drop; and it will be so much the clearer: and you must not remove the whites of Eggs nor Spice out of the bag, all the while it is running. And if the weather be hot, you need not put in so much wine; for it will not then be so apt to gelly as in cold weather.


ANOTHER WAY TO MAKE HARTS-HORN-GELLY

Take a small Cock-chick, when it is scalded, slit it in two pieces, lay it to soak in warm water, until the blood be well out of it. Then take a calves foot half boiled, slit it in the middle and pick out the fat and black of it. Put these into a Gallon of fair-water; skim it very well; Then put into it one Ounce of Harts-horn, and one Ounce of Ivory. When it is half consumed, take some of it up in a spoon; and if it gelly, take it all up, and put it into a silver bason, or such a Pewter one as will endure Char-coal. Then beat four whites of Eggs, with three or four spoonfuls of Damask-Rose-water very well together. Then put these into the gelly, with a quarter of an Ounce of Cinnamon broken into very small pieces; one flake of Mace; three or four thin slices of Ginger; sweeten it with loaf Sugar to your liking; set it then over a chafing dish of coals; stir it well, and cover it close; blow under it, until there arise a scum or curd; let it boil a little, then put into it one top of Rose-mary, two or three of sweet Marjoram; wring into it the juyce of half a Limon; let not your curd fall again, for it will spoil the clearness of the gelly. If you will have it more Cordial, you may grind in a Sawcer, with a little hard Sugar, half a grain of Musk, a grain of Ambergreece. It must be boiled in an earthen pipkin, or a very sweet Iron-pot, after the Harts-horn and Ivory is in it. It must constantly boil, until it gellieth. If there arise any scum, it must be taken off.


MARMULATE OF PIPPINS

Take the quickest Pippins, when they are newly gathered, and are sharp; Pare and Core and cut them into half quarters. Put to them their weight of the finest Sugar in Powder, or broken into little pieces. Put upon these in your preserving pan, as much fountain water, as will even cover them. Boil them with a quick-fire, till by trying a little upon a Plate, you find it gellieth. When it is cold (which may be in less then half an hour) then take it from the fire, and put into it a little of the yellow rind of Limons rasped very small, and a little of the Yellow rinde of Oranges boiled tender (casting away the first waters to correct their bitterness) and cut into narrow slices (as in the gelly of Pippins) and some Ambergreece, with a fourth part of Musk, and break the Apples with the back of your preserving spoon, whiles it cooleth. If you like them sharper, you may put in a little juyce of Limon, a little before you take the pan from the fire. When it is cold, put it into pots. This will keep a year or two.

Try if the juyce of Apples (strained out of rasped Apples) in such sort, as you make Marmulate of Quinces, with the juyce of Quinces, would not be better, then fair-water, to boil your Apples and Sugar in.


GELLY OF QUINCES

My last Gelly of Quinces I made thus. The Quinces being very ripe, and having been long gathered, I took the flesh of twelve Quinces in quarters, and the juyce of fifteen or sixteen others, which made me two pounds of juyce; And I made a strong decoction of about twenty four others, adding to these twenty four (to make the decoction the stronger, and more slimy) the Cores and the Parings of the twelve in quarters; and I used the Cores sliced and Parings of all these. All this boiled about an hour and half in eight or ten pound of water; Then I strained and pressed out the decoction (which was a little viscous, as I desired) and had between 4 and five pound of strong decoction. To the decoction and Syrup, I put three pound of pure Sugar, which being dissolved and scummed, I put in the flesh, and in near an hour of temperate boiling (covered) and often turning the quarters, it was enough. When it was cold, it was store of firm clear red gelly, environing in great quantity the quarters, that were also very tender and well penetrated with the Sugar. I found by this making, that the juyce of Quinces is not so good to make gelly. It maketh it somewhat running like Syrup, and tasteth sweetish, mellowy, syrupy.

The Decoction of the flesh is only good for Syrup. I conceive, it would be a grateful sweetmeat to mingle a good quantity of good gelly with the Marmulate, when it is ready to put into pots. To that end they must both be making at the same time: or if one be a little sooner done then the other, they may be kept a while warm (fit to mingle) without prejudice. Though the Gelly be cold and settled, it will melt again with the warmth of the Marmulate, and so mingle with it, and make a Marmulate, that will appear very gellyish; or peradventure it may be well to fill up a pot or glass with gelly, when it is first half filled with Marmulate a little cooled.


PRESERVED QUINCE WITH GELLY

When I made Quinces with Gelly, I used the first time these proportions; of the decoction of Quinces three pound; of Sugar one pound three quarters; Flesh of Quince two pound and an half; The second time these, of decoction two pound and an half, Sugar two pound and a quarter, Of flesh two pound three quarters. I made the decoction by boyling gently each time a dozen or fourteen Quinces in a Pottle of water, an hour and a half, or two hours, so that the decoction was very strong of the Quinces. I boiled the parings (which for that end were pared very thick, after the Quinces were well wiped) with all the substance of the Quince in thick slices, and part of the Core (excepting all the Kernels) and then let it run through a loose Napkin, pressing gently with two plates, that all the decoction might come out; but be clear without any flesh or mash. The first making I intended should be red; and therefore both the decoction, and the whole were boiled covered, and it proved a fine clear red. This boiled above an hour, when all was in. The other boiled not above half an hour, always uncovered (as also in making his decoction) and the Gelly was of a fine pale yellow. I first did put the Sugar upon the fire with the decoction, and as soon as it was dissolved, I put in the flesh in quarters and halves; and turned the pieces often in the pan; else the bottom of such as lay long unturned, would be of a deeper colour then the upper part. The flesh was very tender and good. I put some of the pieces into Jar-glasses (carefully, not to break them,) and then poured gelly upon them. Then more pieces, then more gelly, &c. all having stood a while to cool a little.


TO MAKE FINE WHITE GELLY OF QUINCES

Take Quinces newly from the tree, fair and sound, wipe them clean, and boil them whole in a large quantity of water, the more the better, and with a quick fire, till the Quinces crack and are soft, which will be in a good half hour, or an hour. Then take out the Quinces, and press out their juyce, with your hands hard, or gently in a press through a strainer, that only the clear liquor or juyce run out, but none of the pap, or solid and fleshy substance of the Quince. (The water, they were boiled in, you may throw away.) This liquor will be slimy and mucilaginous, which proceedeth much from the seeds that remaining within the Quinces, do contribute to making this Liquor. Take three pound of it, and one pound of fine Sugar, and boil them up to a gelly, with a moderate fire, so that they boil every where, but not violently. They may require near an hours boiling to come to a gelly. The tryal of that is, to take a tin or silver plate, and wet it with fair-water, and drop a little of the boiling juyce upon the wet plate; if it stick to the plate, it is not enough; but if it fall off (when you slope the Plate) without sticking at all to it, then is it enough: and then you put it into flat shallow Tin forms, first wetted with cold water, and let it stand in them four or five hours in a cold place, till it be quite cold. Then reverse the plates, that it may shale and fall out, and so put the parcels up in boxes.

Note, you take fountain water, and put the Quinces into it, both of them being cold. Then set