PORK GRISKIN. As this joint is usually very hard, the best way is to cover it with cold water, and let it boil up. Then take it out, rub it over with butter, and set it before the fire in a Dutch oven; a few minutes will do it.
PORK JELLY. Take a leg of well-fed pork, just as cut up, beat it, and break the bone. Set it over a gentle fire, with three gallons of water, and simmer it down to one. Stew with it half an ounce of mace, and half an ounce of nutmegs, and strain it through a fine sieve. When cold, take off the fat, and flavour it with salt. This jelly is reckoned a fine restorative in consumptive cases, and nervous debility, a chocolate-cupful to be taken three times a day.
PORK AS LAMB. To dress pork like lamb, kill a young pig four or five months old, cut up the fore-quarter for roasting as you do lamb, and truss the shank close. The other parts will make delicate pickled pork, steaks, or pies.
PORK PIES. Raise some boiled crust into a round or oval form, and have ready the trimming and small bits of pork when a hog is killed. If these be not sufficient, take the meat of a sweet bone. Beat it well with a rolling-pin, season with pepper and salt, and keep the fat and lean separate. Put it in layers, quite up to the top; lay on the lid, cut the edge smooth round, and pinch it together. As the meat is very solid, it must be baked in a slow soaking oven. The pork may be put into a common dish, with a very plain crust, and be quite as good. Observe to put no bone or water into pork pie: the outside pieces will be hard, unless they are cut small, and pressed close. Pork pies in a raised crust, are intended to be eaten cold.
PORK SAUCE. Take two ounces of the leaves of green sage, an ounce of lemon peel thinly pared, an ounce of minced shalot, an ounce of salt, half a dram of cayenne, and half a dram of citric acid. Steep them for a fortnight in a pint of claret, shake it often, and let it stand a day to settle. Decant the clear liquor, and cork it up close. When wanted, mix a table-spoonful in a quarter of a pint of gravy, or melted butter. This will give a fine relish to roast pork, or roast goose.
PORK SAUSAGES. Chop fat and lean pork together, season it with pepper, salt, and sage. Fill hogs' guts that have been thoroughly soaked and cleaned, and tie up the ends carefully. Or the minced meat may be kept in a very small pan, closely covered, and so rolled and dusted with flour before it is fried. Serve them up with stewed red cabbage, mashed potatoes, or poached eggs. The sausages should be pricked with a pin, before they are boiled or fried, or they will be liable to burst.
PORK STEAKS. Cut them from a loin or neck, and of middling thickness. Pepper and broil them, and keep them turning. When nearly done, put on salt, rub a bit of butter over, and serve the moment they are taken off the fire, a few at a time.
PORKER'S HEAD. Choose a fine young head of pork, clean it well, and put bread and sage as for pig. Sow it up tight, roast it as a young pig, on the hanging jack, and serve it with the same kind of sauce.
PORTABLE SOUP. Boil one or two knuckles of veal, one or two shins of beef, and three pounds of beef, in as much water only as will cover them. Take the marrow out of the bones, put in any kind of spice, and three large onions. When the meat is done to rags, strain it off, and set it in a very cold place. Take off the cake of fat, which will do for common pie crusts, and put the soup into a double-bottomed tin saucepan. Set it on a pretty quick fire, but do not let it burn. It must boil fast and uncovered, and be stirred constantly for eight hours. Put it into a pan, and let it stand in a cold place a day; then pour it into a round soup-dish, and set the dish into a stewpan of boiling water on a stove, and let it boil. Stir it now and then, till the soup is thick and ropy; then it is enough. Pour it into the little round part at the bottom of cups and basons turned upside down, to form it into cakes; and when cold, turn them out on flannel to dry. Keep them in tin canisters; and when to be used, dissolve them in boiling water. The flavour of herbs may be added, by first boiling and straining off the liquor, and melting the soup in it. This preparation is convenient in travelling, or at sea, where fresh meat is not readily obtained, as by this means a bason of soup may be made in five minutes.
PORTER. This pleasant beverage may be made with eight bushels of malt to the hogshead, and eight pounds of hops. While it is boiling in the copper, add to it three pounds of liquorice root bruised, a pound of Spanish liquorice, and twelve pounds of coarse sugar or treacle.