Pig’s Head with Liver and Heart (Stewed).
Clean and split the head, taking out the brains and setting aside. Put the head in a pot with water enough to cover it and parboil it. Have ready another pot with the liver and heart, cut into inch-long pieces, stewed in just enough water to keep them from scorching. When the head is half-done, add the entire contents of the second vessel to the first, and season with salt, pepper, a little onion, parsley, and sage. Cover and stew until the head is very tender, when take it out and lay it in the middle of a flat dish. With a perforated skimmer remove the liver and heart and spread about the head, surrounding, but not covering it. Strain the gravy and return to the pot, thicken with brown flour, squeeze in the juice of a lemon, and drop in carefully force-meat balls of the brains, prepared according to the foregoing receipt and fried a light brown. Boil once and pour about the head, arranging the balls upon it, to cover the split between the two sides of the head.
You may improve this dish, which is very savory, by boiling a couple of pigs’ feet with the head until the meat will slip from the bones. Take them from the liquor, cut off and chop the meat, and put into the large pot when you add the liver, etc.
Souse of Pigs’ Ears and Feet.
Clean the ears and feet well; cover them with cold water slightly salted, and boil until tender. Pack in stone jars while hot, and cover while you make ready the pickle. To half a gallon of good cider vinegar allow half a cup of white sugar, three dozen whole black peppers, a dozen blades of mace, and a dozen cloves. Boil this one minute, taking care that it really boils, and pour while hot over the still warm feet and ears. It will be ready to use in two days, and will keep in a cool, dry place two months.
If you wish it for breakfast, make a batter of one egg, one cup of milk, salt to taste, and a teaspoonful of butter, with enough flour for a thin muffin-batter; dip each piece in this, and fry in hot lard or dripping. Or dip each in beaten egg, then in pounded cracker, before frying.
Souse is also good eaten cold, especially the feet.
Head Cheese. (or Souse.)
This is made of the head, ears and tongue. Boil them in salted water until very tender. Strip the meat from the bones and chop fine. Season with salt, pepper, sage, sweet marjoram, a little powdered cloves, and half a cup of strong vinegar. Mix all together thoroughly, taste to see that it is flavored sufficiently, remembering that the spice tends to keep it, and pack hard in moulds or bowls, interspersing the layers with bits of the tongue cut in oblongs, squares and triangles not less than an inch in length. Press down and keep the meat in shape by putting a plate on the top of each mould (first wetting the plate) and a weight upon this. In two days the cheese will be ready for use. Turn out from the shapes as you wish to use it; or, should you desire to keep it several weeks, take the cheese from the moulds and immerse in cold vinegar in stone jars. This will preserve it admirably, and you have only to pare away the outside, should it be too acid for your taste.
This is generally eaten cold for tea, with vinegar and mustard; but it is very nice cut in slices, seasoned slightly with mustard, and warmed in a frying-pan with enough butter to prevent burning. Or, you may dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry for breakfast.