a wide-mouthed bottle, fresh nice clean mint leaves enough to
fill it loosely; then fill up the bottle with good vinegar; and after
it has been corked close for two or three weeks, pour it off clear
into another bottle, and keep well corked for use. Serve with lamb
when mint cannot be obtained.

2210. Cress Vinegar.

Dry and pound half an ounce of _cress seed_ (such as is sown in the
garden with mustard), pour upon it a quart of the best vinegar, let it
steep for ten days, shaking it up every day. This is very strongly
flavoured with cress, and is useful for salads, and as a sauce for
cold meats, &c. Celery vinegar may be made in the same manner.

2011. Cheap and Good Vinegar.

To eight gallons of clear rain water, add three quarts of molasses;
turn the mixture into a clean, tight cask, shake it well two or three
times, and add three spoonfuls of good yeast; place the cask in a warm
place, and in ten or fifteen days add a sheet of common wrapping
paper, smeared with molasses, and torn into narrow strips, and you
will have good vinegar. The paper is necessary to form the "mother,"
or life of the vinegar.

[LITTLE BOATS MUST KEEP NEAR THE SHORE.]

2212. Cayenne Pepper.

Dr. Kitchiner says (in his excellent book, "The Cook's Oracle" [1]):

"We advise all who are fond of cayenne not to think it too much
trouble to make it of English chilis,--there is no other way of
being sure it is genuine,--and they will obtain a pepper of much
finer flavour, without half the heat of the foreign. A hundred large
chilis, costing only two shillings, will produce you about two
ounces of cayenne,--so it is as cheap as the commonest cayenne. Four
hundred chilis, when the stems were taken off, weighed half a pound;
and when dried produced a quarter of a pound of cayenne pepper. The
following is the way to make it:--Take away the stalks, and put the
pods into a cullender; set them before the fire,--they will take
full twelve hours to dry;--then put them into a mortar, with
one-fourth their weight of salt, and pound them and rub them till
they are as _fine as possible_, and put them into a well-stoppered
bottle."

[Footnote 1: London: Houlston & Sons.]

2213. Peas Powder.

Pound in a marble mortar half an ounce each of dried mint and sage, a
drachm of celery seed, and a quarter of a drachm of cay