Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery

by Marion Harland

Cheshire Pork-pie.

Cut two or three pounds of lean fresh pork into strips as long and as wide as your middle finger. Line a buttered dish with puff-paste; put in a layer of pork seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg or mace; next a layer of juicy apples, sliced and covered with about an ounce of white sugar; then more pork, and so on until you are ready for the paste cover, when pour in half a pint of sweet cider or wine, and stick bits of butter all over the top. Cover with a thick lid of puff-paste, cut a slit in the top, brush over with beaten egg, and bake an hour and a half.

This is an English dish, and is famous in the region from which it takes its name. It is much liked by those who have tried it, and is considered by some to be equal to our mince-pie.

Yorkshire pork-pie is made in the same way, with the omission of the apples, sugar, and nutmeg, and the addition of sage to the seasoning.

Sausage (No. 1).

• 6 lbs. lean fresh pork.
• 3 lbs. fat fresh pork.
• 12 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
• 6 teaspoonfuls black pepper.
• 6 teaspoonfuls salt.
• 2 teaspoonfuls powdered mace.
• 2 teaspoonfuls powdered cloves.
• 1 grated nutmeg.

Grind the meat, fat and lean, in a sausage-mill, or chop it very fine. The mill is better, and the grinding does not occupy one-tenth of the time that chopping does, to say nothing of the labor. One can be bought for three or four dollars, and will well repay the purchaser. Mix the seasoning in with your hands, taste to be sure all is right, and pack down in stone jars, pouring melted lard on top. Another good way of preserving them is, to make long, narrow bags of stout muslin, large enough to contain, each, enough sausage for a family dish. Fill these with the meat, dip in melted lard, and hang from the beams of the cellar.

If you wish to pack in the intestines of the hog, they should be carefully prepared as follows: Empty them, cut them in lengths, and lay for two days in salt and water. Turn them inside out, and lay in soak one day longer. Scrape them, rinse well in soda and water, wipe, and blow into one end, having tied up the other with a bit of twine. If they are whole and clear, stuff with the meat; tie up and hang in the store-room or cellar.

These are fried in the cases, in a clean, dry frying-pan, until brown. If you have the sausage-meat in bulk, make into small, round flat cakes, and fry in the same way. Some dip in egg and pounded cracker—others roll in flour before cooking. Their own fat will cook them. Send to table dry and hot, but do not let them fry hard. When one side is done, turn the other. The fire should be very brisk. Ten minutes, or twelve at the outside, is long enough to cook them.

Sausage (No. 2.)

• 4 lbs. pork, lean.
• 1½ lbs. pork, fat.
• 10 teaspoonfuls sage.
• 5 teaspoonfuls pepper.
• 5 teaspoonfuls salt.

Grind and season as directed in No. 1.

This will not keep so long as that made according to the former receipt, but is very good for immediate family use.

Sausage (No. 3.)

• 2 lbs. lean pork.
• 2 lbs. lean veal.
• 2 lbs. beef suet.
• Peel of half a lemon.
• 1 grated nutmeg.
• 1 teaspoonful black pepper.
• 1 teaspoonful cayenne.
• 5 teaspoonfuls salt.
• 3 teaspoonfuls sweet marjoram and thyme, mixed.
• 2 teaspoonfuls of sage.
• Juice of a lemon.

Stuff in cases. This is very fine.

Bologna Sausage (Uncooked.)

• 6 lbs. lean pork.
• 3 lbs. lean beef.
• 2 lbs. beef suet.
• 4 ounces salt.
• 6 tablespoonfuls black pepper.
• 3 tablespoonfuls cayenne.
• 2 teaspoonfuls powdered cloves.
• 1 teaspoonful allspice.
• One minced onion, very finely chopped.

Chop or grind the meat, and mix the seasoning well through it. Pack it in beef-skins (or entrails) prepared as you do those of pork. In the city, you can have these cleaned by your butcher, or get them ready for use from a pork merchant. Tie both ends tightly, and lay them in brine strong enough to bear up an egg. Let them be in this for a week; change the brine, and let them remain in this a week longer. Turn them over every day of the fortnight. Then take them out, wipe them, and send them to be smoked, if you have no smoke-house of your own. When well smoked, rub them over with sweet oil or fresh butter, and hang them in a cool, dark place.

Bologna sausage is sometimes eaten raw, but the dread of the fatal trichinæ should put at end to this practice, did not common sense teach us that it must be unwholesome, no less than disgusting. Cut in round, thick slices, and toast on a gridiron, or fry in their own fat. If you mean to keep it some time, rub over the skins with pepper to keep away insects.

Bologna Sausage (Cooked.)

• 2 lbs. lean beef.
• 2 lbs. lean veal.
• 2 lbs. lean pork
• 2 lbs. fat salt pork—not smoked.
• 1 lb. beef suet
• 10 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
• 1 oz. marjoram, parsley, savory, and thyme, mixed.
• 2 teaspoonfuls cayenne pepper, and the same of black.
• 1 grated nutmeg.
• 1 teaspoonful cloves.
• 1 minced onion.
• Salt to taste.

Chop or grind the meat and suet; season, and stuff into beef-skins; tie these up; prick each in several places to allow the escape of the steam; put into hot—not boiling water, and heat gradually to the boiling-point. Cook slowly for one hour; take out the skins and lay them to dry in the sun, upon clean, sweet straw or hay. Rub the outside of the skins with oil or melted butter, and hang in a cool, dry cellar. If you mean to keep it more than a week, rub pepper or powdered ginger upon the outside. You can wash it off before sending to table. This is eaten without further cooking. Cut in round slices, and lay sliced lemon around the edge of the dish, as many like to squeeze a few drops upon the sausage before eating.