Part 13

PORK STEAKS, FRIED.--Cut them thin, but do not trim off the fat. Sprinkle them well all over with finely minced sage or sweet marjoram. Lay them in a frying-pan, and fry them well on both sides, keeping them very hot after they are done. Wash out the frying-pan, (or have another one ready, which is better,) and put it over the fire with plenty of lard, or fresh butter. Have ready plenty of slices of large juicy apples, pared, cored, and cut into round pieces. Fry them well, and when done, take them up on a perforated skimmer, to drain the lard from them. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar, and pile them on a dish to eat with the pork.

Otherwise, send to table with the pork, a dish of apple sauce made in the usual manner, or a dish of dried peaches, stewed, mashed, and sweetened.

PORK APPLE POT-PIE.--Make a plentiful quantity of nice paste. With some of it line the sides (but not the bottom) of a large pot. At the very bottom lay a slice of _fresh_ pork, with most of the fat trimmed off. Season it with a very little salt and pepper, and add some pieces of paste. Next put in a thick layer of juicy apples, cut in slices, strewed with brown sugar. Add another layer of pork, and another of sliced apples. Proceed thus till the pot is nearly full, finishing with a lid of paste, not fitting quite closely. Cut a cross-slit in the top, through which pour in some sweet cider to moisten it, and set it to cooking. Keep the pot covered; set it at once over a good fire, but not so hot as to burn the pie. See that it is well done before you take it up. It is a convenient dish in the country at the season of apple picking, cider making, and pork killing.

Stewed or baked apples are always greatly improved by a flavoring of lemon, rose-water, or nutmeg.

APPLE PORK PIE.--Core, peel, and quarter some fine juicy baking-apples. Make a nice paste with fresh butter and sifted flour, and line with it the bottom and sides of a deep dish. Put in the apples, and strew among them sufficient brown sugar to make them very sweet. If you can obtain a fresh lemon, pare off very thin the yellow rind, and squeeze the juice to flavor the apples. Prepare some fresh pork steaks, cut thin, and divested of all the fat except a little at the edge; removing the bone. Cover the apples with a layer of meat, and pour in a tea-cup of _sweet_ cider. The contents of the pie should be heaped up in the centre. Have ready a nice lid of paste, and cover the pie with it, closing and crimping the edge. In the centre of the lid cut a cross-slit. Put it into a hot oven and bake it well. This is a farm-house dish, and very good. Try it.

Apples have always been considered a suitable accompaniment to fresh pork.

FILLET OF PORK.--Cut a fillet or round, handsomely and evenly, from a fine leg of fresh pork. Remove the bone. Make a stuffing or forcemeat of grated bread-crumbs; butter; a tea-spoonful of sweet marjoram, or tarragon leaves; and sage leaves enough to make a small table-spoonful, when minced or rubbed fine; all well mixed, and slightly seasoned with pepper and salt. Then stuff it closely into the hole from whence the bone was taken. Score the skin of the pork in circles to go all round the fillet. These circles should be very close together, or about half an inch apart. Rub into them, slightly, a little powdered sage. Put it on the spit, and roast it well, till it is thoroughly done throughout; as pork, if the least underdone, is not fit to eat. Place it, for the first hour, not very close to the fire, that the meat may get well heated all through, before the skin begins to harden so as to prevent the heat from penetrating sufficiently. Then set it as near the fire as it can be placed without danger of scorching. Keep it roasting steadily with a bright, good, regular fire, for two or three hours, or longer still if it is a large fillet. It may require near four hours. Baste it at the beginning with sweet oil (which will make the skin very crisp) or with lard. Afterwards, baste it with its own gravy. When done, skim the fat from the gravy, and then dredge in a little flour to thicken it. Send the pork to table with the gravy in a boat; and a deep dish of apple sauce, made very thick, flavored with lemon, and sweetened well.

A fillet of pork is excellent stewed slowly in a very little water, having in the same stew-pot some sweet potatos, peeled, split, and cut into long pieces. If stewed, put _no sage_ in the stuffing; and remove the skin of the pork. This is an excellent family dish in the autumn.

ITALIAN PORK.--Take a nice leg of fresh pork; rub it well with fine salt and let it lie in the salt for a week or ten days. When you wish to cook it, put the pork into a large pot, with just sufficient water to cover it; and let it simmer, slowly, during four hours; skimming it well. Then take it out, and lay it on a large dish. Pour the water from the pot into an earthen pan; skim it, and let it cool while you are skinning the pork. Then put into a pot, a pint of good cider vinegar, mixed with half a pound of brown sugar, and a pint of the water in which the pork has been boiled, and from which all the fat has been carefully skimmed off. Put in the pork with the upper side towards the bottom of the pot. Set it again over the fire, (which must first be increased,) and heat the inside of the pot-lid by standing it upright against the front of the fire. Then cover the pot closely, and let the pork stew for an hour and a half longer; basting it frequently with the liquid around it, and keeping the pot-lid as hot as possible that the meat may be well browned. When done, the pork will have somewhat the appearance of being coated with molasses. Serve up the gravy with it. What is left of the meat may be sliced cold for breakfast or luncheon.

You may stew with it, when the pork is put into the pot a second time, some large chestnuts, previously boiled and peeled. Or, instead of chestnuts, sweet potatos, scraped, split, and cut into small pieces.

PORK OLIVES.--Cut slices from a fillet or leg of cold fresh pork. Make a forcemeat in the usual manner, only substituting for sweet herbs some sage-leaves, chopped fine. When the slices are covered with the forcemeat, and rolled up and tied round, stew them slowly either in cold gravy left of the pork, or in fresh lard. Drain them well before they go to table. Serve them up on a bed of mashed turnips, or potatos, or of mashed sweet potatos, if in season.

PIGS' FEET, FRIED.--Pigs' feet are frequently used for jelly, instead of calves' feet. They are very good for this purpose, but a larger number is required (from eight to ten or twelve) to make the jelly sufficiently firm. After they have been boiled for jelly, extract the bones, and put the meat into a deep dish: cover it with some good cider vinegar, seasoned with sugar and a little salt and cayenne. Then cover the dish, and set it away for the night. Next morning, take out the meat, and having drained it well from the vinegar, put it into a frying-pan, in which some lard has just come to a boil, and fry it for a breakfast dish.

PORK AND BEANS.--Take a good piece of pickled pork, (not very fat,) and to each pound of pork allow a quart of dried white beans. The bone should be removed from the pork, and the beans well picked and washed. The evening before they are wanted for cooking, put the beans and pork to soak in _separate pans_; and just before bed-time, drain off the water, and replace it with fresh. Let them soak all night. Early in the morning, drain them well from the water, and wash first the beans, and then the pork in a cullender. Having scored the skin in stripes, or diamonds, put the pork into a pot with fresh cold water, and the beans into another pot with sufficient cold water to cook them well. Season the pork with a little pepper, but, of course, no salt. Boil them separately and slowly till the pork is thoroughly done (skimming it well) and till the beans have all burst open. Afterwards take them out, and drain them well from the water. Then lay the pork in the middle of a tin pan, (there must be no liquid fat about it) and the beans round it, and over it, so as nearly to bury it from sight. Pour in a very little water, and set the dish into a hot oven, to bake or brown for half an hour. If kept too long in the oven the beans will become dry and hard. If sufficiently boiled when separate, half an hour will be long enough for the pork and beans to bake together. Carefully skim off any liquid fat that may rise to the surface. Cover the dish, and send it to table hot.

For a small dish, two quarts of beans and two pounds of pork will be enough. To this quantity, when put to bake in the oven, you may allow a pint of water.

This is a good plain dish, very popular in New England, and generally liked in other parts of the country, if properly done.

PORK WITH CORN AND BEANS.--Boil a nice small leg of corned pork, skim it well, and boil it thoroughly. Then have ready a quart, or more, of fresh string-beans, each bean cut into only three pieces. Boil the beans for an hour in a separate pot. In another pot boil four ears of young sweet corn, and when soft and tender, cut it down from the cob, with a sharp knife, and mix it with the boiled beans, having drained them, through a cullender, from all the water that is about them. Having mixed them well together, in a deep dish, season them with pepper, (no salt,) and add a large lump of fresh butter.

For green beans you may substitute dried white ones, boiled by themselves, well drained, and seasoned with pepper and butter, and mixed in the same dish before they are sent to table. Or the mixed corn and beans may be heaped round the pork upon the same dish.

To eat with them make some indian dumplings of corn meal and water, mixed into a stiff dough, formed into thick dumplings, about as large round as the top of a tea-cup, and boiled in a pot by themselves.

PORK WITH PEAS PUDDING.--Boil a nice piece of pickled or corned pork, (the leg is the best,) and let it be well skinned, and thoroughly cooked. To make the pudding, pick over and wash through cold water, a quart of yellow split peas, and tie them in a square cloth, leaving barely sufficient room for them to swell; but if too much space is allowed for swelling, they will be weak and washy. When the peas are all dissolved into a mass, turn them out of the cloth, and rub them through a coarse sieve into a pan. Then add a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, mixed well into the peas, and a very little pepper. Beat light, three yolks and one whole egg, and stir them into the peas a little at a time. Then beat the whole very hard. Dip your pudding-cloth into hot water; spread it out in a pan, and pour the mixture into it. Tie up the cloth, and put the pudding into a pot of boiling water. Let it boil steadily for at least an hour. When done, send it to table, and eat it with the pork.

Next day, if there is much left, boil both the pork and the pudding over again, (the remains of the pudding tied in the cloth.) Let them boil till thoroughly warmed throughout. Cut them in slices. Place them on the same dish, the pork in the middle, with slices of pudding laid round, and send them to the breakfast table, for strong healthy eaters.

SAUSAGE-MEAT.--To fifteen pounds of the lean of fresh pork, allow five pounds of the fat. Having removed the skin, sinews, and gristle, chop both the fat and lean as fine as possible, and mix them well together. Rub to a powder sufficient sage-leaves to make four ounces when done. Mix the sage with two ounces of fine salt, two ounces of brown sugar, an ounce of powdered black pepper, and a quarter of an ounce of cayenne. Add this seasoning to the chopped pork, and mix it thoroughly. Pack the sausage-meat down, hard and closely, into stone jars, which must be kept in a cool place, and well covered. When wanted for use, make some of it into small flat cakes, dredge them with flour, and fry them well. The fat that exudes from the sausage-cakes, while frying, will be sufficient to cook them in.

SAUSAGE DUMPLING.--Make a good paste in the proportion of three mashed potatos, and a quarter of a pound of finely minced suet to a quart of flour. Roll it out into a thick sheet. Fill it with the best home-made sausage meat. Lay the sausage meat in an even heap on the sheet of dough, and close it up so as to form a large round dumpling. Dip a square cloth in boiling water, shake it out, dredge it with flour, and tie the dumpling in it, leaving room for it to swell. Put it into a pot of boiling water, and keep it boiling hard till thoroughly done. Do not turn it till immediately before it goes to table. It requires no sauce but a little cold butter. It may be made into several small dumplings.

VEAL AND SAUSAGE PIE.--Line a deep oval dish with a very nice paste. Lay at the bottom a thin veal cutlet, seasoned with powdered mace. Place upon it some of the best sausage meat, spread thin; then another veal cutlet, and then more sausage. Repeat this till the dish is full, finishing with sausage meat on the top. Then cover the pie with a rather thick lid or upper crust, uniting the two edges at the rim, by crimping or notching them neatly. Make a cross slit in the centre of the lid. Bake the pie well, and serve it up hot.

Put no water into this pie, as the veal and the sausage will give out sufficient gravy. We recommend this pie.

If you live where veal cannot always be procured, substitute chicken or turkey, boiled and cut up, and covered with layers of sausage; or else thin slices of venison; or else, the best part of a pair of boiled or roasted rabbits.

BOLOGNA SAUSAGES.--Take three pounds of the lean of a round of corned or salted beef, and three pounds of the lean of corned or salted pork. Boil them for an hour in separate pots. Take them up, let them grow cold, and chop them separately. Chop also, very fine, two pounds of the fat of bacon, and one pound of beef suet. When these things are all separately minced, mix them well together, seasoning them well with chopped sage, sweet marjoram, black pepper, and powdered mace. Also, if liked, two or three boiled onions minced very small. Have ready some of the large skins commonly used for these sausages. The skins must have been carefully emptied, washed, and scraped till quite transparent. Fill them with the above mixture, stuffing it in hard and evenly with a sausage-stuffer, sewing and tying both ends securely. Put the sausages into a brine or pickle, such as is made for ham, of salt, brown sugar, and molasses mixed with water, and strong enough to bear up an egg. Let the sausages remain a week in this pickle, turning them every day, and keeping it closely covered. Then take them out and hang them up to dry, tied in strings or links. Smoke them for a week over a fire of oak sticks or corn-cobs. Afterwards, rub them over with salad oil, which is much the better for being mixed with ashes of vine twigs.

Sausages made faithfully as above, will be found equal to the real Bologna, by the lovers of this sort of relish. When it is eaten they are sliced very thin. Few ladies eat them.

HOG'S HEAD CHEESE.--Hog's head cheese is always made at what is called "killing time." To make four cheeses of moderate size, take two large hog's heads; two sets, (that is eight feet,) and the noses of all the pigs that have been killed that day. Clean all these things well, and then boil them to rags. Having drained off the liquid through a cullender, spread out the things in large dishes, and carefully remove all the bones, even to the smallest bits. With a chopper mince the meat as fine as possible, and season it well with pepper, salt, sage, and sweet marjoram, adding some powdered mace. Having divided the prepared meats into four equal parts, tie up each portion tightly in a clean coarse cloth, and press it into a compact cake, by putting on heavy weights. It will be fit for use next day. In a cool dry place it will keep all winter. It requires no farther cooking, and is eaten sliced at breakfast, luncheon, or supper. If well made, and well seasoned with the herbs and spices, it will be found very nice for a relish.

LIVER PUDDINGS.--Boil some pigs' livers, and when cold mince them, adding some cold ham or bacon, in the proportion of a pound of liver to a quarter of a pound of fat bacon. Add also some boiled pigs' feet, allowing to each pound of liver four pigs' feet boiled, skinned, boned, and chopped. Season with pepper, powdered mace or nutmeg, and sweet herbs, (sweet basil and marjoram.) Put the mixture (packed hard,) into straight-sided tin or white ware pans, and cover them with a clean cloth. Put heavy weights on the top. Cover them also with folded brown paper, and set them in a cool dry place. They will be fit to eat next day. Slice them thick, and send them to the tea or breakfast table. Or you may fill with the mixture, some nicely cleaned and very transparent sausage skins, (of a large size,) and tie up the ends with coarse brown thread, to be removed before going to table.

You may cut them into large pieces, and broil them, or fry them in lard.

Calves' liver makes still nicer puddings.

Keep liver puddings in flat stone jars.

Never use newspaper to cover or wrap up any thing eatable. The black always rubs off, and the copperas in the printing ink is very poisonous.

HAM, etc.

BRINE FOR PICKLING MEAT.--To every four gallons of water allow four pounds of fine salt, two ounces of saltpetre, three pounds of brown sugar, and two quarts of West India molasses. Boil the whole together, stirring it well, and skimming it after stirring. When clear, let it cool. The meat being clean and dry, rub it all over with ground red pepper. Then put as much meat into the pickling-tub as can be very well covered by the brine, which must be poured on cold. Let it remain six weeks in the pickle, (carefully taking off the scum,) and turning each piece every day. Afterwards, hang it till it is dry outside, and then smoke it well for a fortnight, hanging it high above the fire with the large end downward. The fire in the smoke-house should be steadily kept up all the time. Hickory or oak is the best wood for this purpose. On no account use pine, cedar, spruce, or hemlock. They will communicate to the meat a strong taste of turpentine, and render it uneatable. A fire made of corn-cobs is excellent for smoking meat, and they should be saved for that purpose. When the meat is smoked, rub it all over with ground pepper to prevent insects, and sew up all the pieces in new cotton cloths, coarse and thick, and then white-wash them. We have seen ham-covers, painted with flowers and gilded. Since California, gilding pervades the land.

This pickle will be found excellent for hams, bacon, tongues, or beef. Meat for pickling must be very fresh, and of excellent quality. Before sewing it up in covers see that it is free from insects. If to go to sea, pack in boxes of powdered charcoal for a long voyage. For a short one, barrels of wood-ashes will do.

TO CURE HAMS.--To make good hams the pork must be of the best quality. No animal tastes so much of its food as the pig. In America, we consider a pig "killed off the slop" as unfit to eat; and so he is. All our pigs are kept up in a pen, and fattened with Indian corn, or corn meal, for several weeks previous to killing. A hundred pounds of corn meal, (mixed with water to about the consistency of very thick mush,) is said to be equal in fattening pigs to two hundred pounds of dry-shelled corn. They should be kept up, and well fed for eight weeks; and occasionally, in the country, where such fruits are superabundant, the pigs should have a regale of melons, peaches, &c. This we have seen, and the pork was, of course, very fine. The hams or hind-quarters are considered the most valuable part of the animal. They are cured in various modes. But the Newbold receipt has hitherto been the most popular. Mr. Newbold was a Pennsylvania farmer. The following directions, we believe, are authentic.

For one hundred pounds of fine pork, take seven pounds of coarse salt, five pounds of brown sugar, two ounces of saltpetre, half an ounce of pearlash, and four gallons of water. Boil all together, and skim the pickle when cold. Pour it on the meat. Let hams or tongues remain in the pickling-tub eight weeks. Before it is smoked, hang it up and dry it two or three days. Three weeks will be sufficient for pickling beef. Previous to sewing the hams in cases, rub them all over with ground black pepper.

Soap-suds given frequently to pigs, when kept up to fatten, will greatly promote their health.

BOILED HAM.--Having soaked a fine ham from early in the evening till near bed-time, putting it into warm water, and changing that water about ten or eleven o'clock--wash and brush it well in the morning, and trim it so as to look nicely all over. Lay at the bottom of the ham-boiler a bed of nice fresh hay, which will greatly improve the flavor. Let the hock bone be sawed off short. A long shank bone looks very awkward. Place the ham upon the hay--pour in plenty of cold water, and keep it simmering very slowly an hour before you allow it to boil. Then increase the heat gradually, and keep the ham boiling steadily for four, five, or six hours, according to its size and age. An old ham requires more soaking and boiling than a new one. Skim it frequently after the boiling begins. It will be much improved by transferring it to a spit, (having taken off the whole skin,) and roasting the ham, for the last two or three hours, basting it with its own essence. Save the skin to cover the cold ham, and keep it fresh. Before it goes to table cover the ham with grated bread-crumbs, sifted on so as to form a slight crust.

If the ham is to be eaten cold, and is intended for company, brush it all over with beaten yolk of egg. Then dredge on sufficient grated crumbs to form a crust half an inch thick, and finish by going all over it with cream. Set it to brown in an oven, or put it on the spit of a roaster. When cold, this glazing will be found surpassingly fine. Decorate the hock with white paper, handsomely cut, or with a bunch of flowers cut out of vegetables.

Carve a ham in very thin slices--if cut thick, they have not the same taste, besides looking ungenteelly.

BAKED HAM.--For baking, take a small ham, or part of a large one, trimmed and made of good shape, cutting away whatever looks unsightly. Have the bone sawed off at the knuckle, or end of the hock. The evening previous to cooking, lay the ham in soak in a large pan of hot water. At bed-time pour off the water, and renew it. Keep it closely covered all night. In the morning wash and brush it well. Make a coarse paste of coarse flour mixed with water only, and roll it out about an inch thick. Line a clean iron bake-oven with this, and put in the ham, reserving enough of paste to cover the top. Pour in a very little water, merely sufficient to keep the ham from burning. Put on the lid of paste, and having wet the edges slightly press them together, so as to unite closely the top and bottom crust. Bake it over a steady fire, from four to five or six hours, or more, according to its size. When done, skim the gravy, remove the paste, (which is of no farther use,) and take off the skin of the ham. Dredge it all over with finely grated bread-crumbs, before it goes to table. A ham can scarcely be cooked too much, and too slow. The general fault is in cooking them too little, and too fast. A ham of the smallest size will require at least four hours baking or boiling, even after it has been all night in soak. Save the skin whole, to cover the cold ham when it is put away in the pantry.

When a cooked ham is nearly all used up, take what remains, cut it all off from the bone, and stew the bits in a little water, till they are all to rags. You will find the essence an improvement to gravies, strained from the fragments.