BAKED PIG.
Prepare the pig exactly as for roasting; truss, and place it in the dish in which it is to be sent to the oven, and anoint it thickly in every part with white of egg which has been slightly beaten; it will require no basting, nor further attention of any kind, and will be well crisped by this process.
PIG À LA TARTARE
When the shoulders of a cold roast pig are left entire, take them off with care, remove the skin, trim them into good form, dip them into clarified butter or very pure salad oil, then into fine crumbs highly seasoned with cayenne and mixed with about a half-teaspoonful of salt. Broil them over a clear brisk fire, and send them quickly to table, as soon as they are heated through and equally browned, with tomata sauce, or sauce Robert. Curried crumbs and a currie-sauce will give an excellent variety of this dish; and savoury herbs with two or three eschalots chopped small together, and mixed with the bread-crumbs, and brown eschalot sauce to accompany the broil, will likewise be an acceptable one to many tastes.
SUCKING PIG EN BLANQUETTE. (ENTRÉE.)
Raise the flesh from the bones of a cold roast pig, free it from the crisp outer skin or crackling, and cut it down into small handsome slices. Dissolve a bit of butter the size of an egg, and throw in a handful of button-mushrooms, cleaned and sliced; shake these over the fire for three or four minutes, then stir to them a dessertspoonful of flour and continue to shake or toss them gently, but do not allow them to brown. Add a small bunch of parsley, a bay-leaf, a middling-sized blade of mace, some salt, a small quantity of cayenne or white pepper, half a pint of good veal or beef broth, and from two to three glasses of light white wine. Let these boil gently until reduced nearly one third; take out the parsley and mace, lay in the meat, and bring it slowly to the point of simmering; stir to it the beaten yolks of three fresh eggs, and the strained juice of half a lemon Serve the blanquette very hot.
TO ROAST PORK.
When the skin is left on the joint which is to be roasted, it must be scored in narrow strips of equal width, before it is put to the fire, and laid at a considerable distance from it at first, that the meat may be heated through before the skin hardens or begins to brown; it must never stand still for an instant, and the basting should be constant. Pork is not at the present day much served at very good tables, particularly in this form; and it is so still less with the old savoury stuffing of sage and onions, though some eaters like it always with the leg: when it is ordered for this joint, therefore prepare it as directed for a goose, at page [160], and after having loosened the skin from the knuckle, insert as much as can well be secured in it. A little clarified butter or salad oil may be brushed over the skin quite at first, particularly should the meat not be very fat, but unless remarkably lean, it will speedily yield sufficient dripping to baste it with. Joints from which the fat has been pared, will require of course far less roasting than those on which the crackling is retained. Brown gravy, and apple or tomata sauce, are the usual accompaniments to all roasts of pork except a sucking pig; they should always be thoroughly cooked.
Leg of pork of 8 lbs., 3 hours; loin of from 5 to 6 lbs., with the skin on, 2 to 2-1/2 hours; spare rib of 6 to 7 lbs., 1-1/2 hour.