PORK
Roast pig
Lay the pig, which has been prepared by the butcher, in cold water for fifteen minutes, then wipe dry, inside and out. Make a stuffing as for a turkey, and work into it two beaten eggs. Stuff the pig to his original size and shape. Sew him up, bend his fore legs backward, and his back legs forward under him, and skewer him thus. Dredge him with flour and put it, with a little salted water, into a covered roaster. Roast for an hour and a half; remove the cover, rub the pig well with butter and return the cover, leaving the slide open. At the end of twenty minutes remove the cover again, rub the pig once more with butter, and brown him for ten minutes. Serve very hot with apple sauce.
A pig for roasting should not weigh over six or seven pounds after it is cleaned. If larger, it is gross food. The meat should be as delicate as chicken.
Roast pork
Score the skin until the knife touches the meat under it. Rub into these lines or squares a mixture of fine crumbs seasoned with onion juice, a little grated lemon-peel and the juice of half a lemon, with pepper and salt to taste. Work in well until the stuffing stands out of the cracks. Put into your roaster, with a cupful of hot water under it, and after covering bring quickly to the point at which the water begins to steam. Slacken the heat then, and cook twenty-five minutes to the pound, basting often with its own gravy.
Pour off this gravy twenty minutes before taking the meat up, and set in a bowl of ice to send all the fat to the top. Greasy pork gravy is an offense to the educated palate. Thicken with browned flour.
A better plan is not to attempt to make gravy, but to send around apple sauce alone with the roast.
Chine of pork braised with apples
Instruct your butcher to cut the chine with plenty of meat on both sides of the bone. Sprinkle it well with pepper and salt, and lightly with sage and sweet marjoram. Pare, core and cut into thick slices three large, tart apples. Cover the grating of your roaster with them, strew with sugar and lay the chine upon them. Dot the meat with butter; cover and roast twenty-five minutes to the pound. At the end of that time transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, turning it over that the side which has lain upon the apples may be uppermost. Wash with butter, cover thick with salted and peppered crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of a hot oven while you make the gravy.
To do this rub the cooked apple and the liquor with them through a colander into a saucepan, add a little hot water, a lump of butter rolled in flour, and, if very tart, a little sugar; pepper and salt to taste, boil up and turn into a boat.
Serve peas, pudding or beans in some shape with the chine.
Pork tenderloins
Broil over a clear, steady fire, turning as often as they begin to drip. Allow twenty minutes, if small; more when large. Lay upon a heated dish, cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice, onion juice, pepper, salt and a dash of powdered sage. Turn over and over in this as it melts; cover closely and leave over hot water several minutes to let the seasoning sink into the meat.
Serve browned whole potatoes and apple sauce with them.
Boiled ham
Soak eight hours, and scrub it hard with a stiff brush or whisk to get out salt and dirt. Cover with an abundance of cold water, and put into it two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. Heat very gradually. At the end of the first hour it should not have reached the boiling point. Simmer gently four or five hours. Allow twenty minutes to every pound for a corned ham; twenty-five for a smoked. Let it get almost cold in the liquor—entirely cold before you skin it.
Barbecued fresh ham
Score the rind with a sharp knife. Mix one tablespoonful of mustard seed, half a teaspoonful, each, of celery seed and pepper corns with one cupful of sugar, one cupful of vinegar and two cupfuls of water. Let these stand ten minutes, then pour it over the ham. Turn it in this pickle several times during the day. Next morning put the ham into your covered roaster in a slow oven, fat side down, for the first hour. Strain the pickle and keep it hot on the back of the stove. Baste the ham frequently with it and bake four hours, or until tender.
All of the pickle should have been used in basting. Lay the ham upon a heated dish and keep hot over boiling water while you make the gravy. Strain the liquor, thicken with browned flour, add salt to taste, simmer for five minutes and pour part over the meat, the rest into a boat.
Those who are fond of hot fresh pork can not do better than to try this. It is also delicious cold.
Breaded ham
Boil as directed in recipe for boiled ham. When cold, skin and rub all over with flour. Next, brush with beaten egg, sift fine crumbs thickly ever the egg, then more egg and another coat of crumbs. Dust with pepper and brown gradually.
Eat cold, garnished with parsley.
Baked ham
Is seldom really “baked.” Boil a ham eighteen minutes to the pound; leave it one hour in the liquor in which it was cooked; take it out and let it get really cold and firm before stripping off the skin. Rub the upper side with white of egg and sift over it bread dust a quarter of an inch thick. Pepper lightly, and set in the oven for half an hour, or until the coating is well shortened by the oozing fat, and of a nice brown. Let it get cold to the very bone before serving it. If you like a suspicion of onion flavoring, wash the surface to be breaded with onion juice before going over it with the white of an egg.
Baked corned ham
Soak over night. In the morning scrub hard and pare away the underside until the meat and fat show red and white. Wash well with vinegar and do not wipe. Lay, skin downward, in your roaster, covering the side you have pared with a thick paste of flour and water. Have ready a mixture of one cupful of cold water and half as much vinegar, a tablespoonful of molasses and one of onion juice. Pour around the ham; cover closely and bake half an hour to the pound, after the water is hot. Baste six times with the liquor in the pan.
Take up, scrape off the paste, remove the skin, dusting instantly and thickly with fine cracker-crumbs to stop the escape of the juices. There should be a cracker crust a quarter-inch thick. Set upon the upper grating to brown.
Stuffed ham
Wash a ham and soak over night; then, with a narrow, sharp blade, remove the bone. Fill the cavity thus left with a forcemeat of bread-crumbs, seasoned with pepper and moistened with a little water in which a spoonful of butter has been melted. Sew the ham up closely in a piece of cheese-cloth and boil until done, allowing twenty minutes to the pound. Leave it in the water until cold, transfer to a platter and put under a heavy weight for twelve hours. Now remove the cloth and the skin, and sprinkle the ham with pepper before sending to the table.
To pickle pork
Mix together four and a half pounds of salt, a pound of brown sugar and one ounce of saltpeter, stirred into three gallons of water. Boil for half an hour, skimming every ten minutes. Set aside to cool, and when cold pour over the meat packed in a crock or keg.
Virginia recipe for curing ham
Put the ham into pickle made by putting into one and one-half gallons of water one-half pound of brown sugar, one-half ounce of saltpeter and two and one-quarter pounds of salt. Boil this mixture for half an hour, skimming frequently; then set aside to cool and pour over the ham. Leave for two weeks, remove the ham, wash it in fresh water; dip it, still wet, in bran, and coat thickly with it. Now take to the smokehouse and hang, hock end down, in smoke from hickory chips and sawdust for four weeks. Brush off the bran, wrap in brown paper and hang up until needed.