Skim it clean while boiling. Put it to the beef cold; have
enough to cover it; and be careful your beef never floats on the top.
If it does not smell perfectly sweet, throw in more salt; if a scum
rises upon it, scald and skim it again, and pour it on the beef when
cold.
Legs of mutton are very good, cured in the same way as ham. Six pounds
of salt, eight ounces of salt-petre, and five pints of molasses, will
make pickle enough for one hundred weight. Small legs should be kept
in pickle twelve or fifteen days; if large, four or five weeks are not
too much. They should be hung up a day or two to dry, before they are
smoked. Lay them in the oven, on crossed sticks, and make a fire at
the entrance. Cobs, walnut-bark, or walnut-chips, are the best to use
for smoking, on account of the sweet taste they give the meat. The
smallest pieces should be smoked forty-eight hours, and large legs
four or five days. Some people prefer the mutton boiled as soon as it
is taken from the pickle, before it is smoked; others hang it up till
it gets dry thoroughly, and eat it in thin slices, like hung beef.
When legs of meat are put in pickle, the thickest part of the leg
should be placed uppermost, that is, standing upright, the same as the
creature stood when living.
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