Vegetables Recipe

Grateful and salutary Spring! the _plants_

Which crown thy numerous gardens, and invite

To health and temperance, in the simple meal,

Unstain'd with murder, undefil'd with blood,

Unpoison'd with rich sauces, to provoke

The unwilling appetite to gluttony.

For this, the _bulbous esculents_ their roots

With sweetness fill; for this, with cooling juice

The green herb spreads its _leaves_; and opening _buds_

And _flowers_ and _seeds_ with various flavors tempts

Th' ensanguined palate from its savage feast.

DODSLEY.

As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferred to the

largest or smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of flavor,

just before they are quite full grown. Freshness is their chief value

and excellence, and I should as soon think of roasting an animal alive,

as of boiling a vegetable after it is dead.

To boil them in soft water will preserve the color best of such as are

green; if you have only hard water, put to it a teaspoonful of carbonate

of potash.

Take care to wash and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and

insects. This requires great attention.

If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make

it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you

put in the greens, &c., which should not be put in till the water boils

briskly; the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the

vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been

kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose

their color and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before

you send them to table.

This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.