Roast a haunch like a loin or leg of veal, and about as long. Flour it thickly. Put some of the stock for gravies, or water in which beef has been boiled, into the pan, and baste it often. Half an hour before serving it add a table-spoonful of butter to the gravy, and baste it again and again.
If you use blazes at the table, roast it but an hour. Most persons like venison cooked simply, without spices. But if you choose to have a dressing, make it as for veal, with the addition of powdered clove.
Venison steaks are cooked like beef steaks.
To Roast a Pig.
It should not be more than a month old. It is better a little less, and it should be killed on the morning of the day it is to be cooked. Sprinkle fine salt over it an hour before it is put to the fire. Cut off the feet at the first joint. Make stuffing enough to fill it very full, of bread crumbs moistened with a little milk, a small piece of butter, sweet marjoram, sage, pepper, and salt. When placed on the spit, confine the legs in such a manner as to give it a good shape. Rub it all over with butter or sweet oil, to keep it from blistering. Flour it at first a little. As soon as it begins to brown, dredge on a very thick covering of flour. Turn the spit every three or four minutes. If the flour falls off, instantly renew it. When it has all become of a dark brown color, scrape it off into a plate and set it aside. Put a piece of butter into the gravy in the roaster, and baste the pig very often, till it is done, which it is when the eyes fall out. The feet and liver should be boiled an hour or two, and the gravy from the roaster be poured into the water in which they were boiled. The liver should be cut or mashed fine, and the feet cut open and returned to the sauce-pan, the brains taken out and added, and the gravy thickened with the browned flour reserved in the plate. A pig of a month old will roast in two hours and a half.
A Shoulder of Pork.
One weighing ten pounds will require full three hours and a half to roast it. For a small family divide it, and roast one half and corn the other. With a sharp knife score the skin in diamonds, or in strips about an inch wide. Make a dressing, as directed under the head of Stuffing of Various Kinds. Put this into deep incisions made in the thick part of the meat. Rub a little fine powdered sage into the skin where it is scored; and then rub the whole surface with sweet oil, or drippings, to prevent its blistering. Observe the directions respecting the basting and frequent turning of meat. Pork burns very easily, and both the taste and appearance are much injured by its being burnt.
Spare-rib or Chine.
A spare-rib requires an hour and a half or two hours, according to the thickness. A very thin one will roast in an hour and a half. Flour it well, and take care it does not burn. Baste it often. The chine requires a longer time, being a thicker piece. It is more healthy, because less fat than the spare-rib, and having more meat in proportion to the bone, is a more economical piece. Before roasting either, trim off neatly, with a sharp knife, all the fat which can be removed without disfiguring the piece, and set it aside to be tried and used as lard.
Pork Steaks.