Home Pork Making Part 9

PORK WITH PEA PUDDING (ENGLISH STYLE).

Boil the pork as directed above, and do not omit the vegetables, as they flavor the meat and the pudding. Use the yellow split peas and soak a pint in cold water over night. Drain and tie them loosely in a pudding bag and boil with the pork for three hours. An hour before dinner remove and press through a colander, add a teaspoon salt, half a teaspoon pepper and 3 eggs well beaten. Chop enough parsley to make a teaspoonful, add to the peas with a little grated nutmeg. Beat up well, sift in half a pint of flour and pour into a pudding bag. The same bag used before will do if well washed. Tie it up tightly, drop into the pork water again and boil another hour. Remove, let drain in the colander a few minutes, when turn out onto a dish. Serve with the pork, and any preferred sauce; mint sauce is good to serve with pork, and a tomato sauce is always good. In fact, it is a natural hygienic instinct which ordains a tart fruit or vegetable to be eaten with pork. The Germans, who are noted for their freedom from skin diseases, add sour fruit sauces to inordinately fat meats.

PORK WITH SAUERKRAUT (GERMAN STYLE).

Boil a leg of pork for three or four hours, wash 2 quarts sauerkraut, put half of it into an iron pot, lay on it the pork drained from the water in which it was cooking and cover with the remainder of sauerkraut, add 1 quart water in which the pork was cooking, cover closely and simmer gently for one hour.

PORK CHOWDER.

Have ready a quart of potatoes sliced, 2 large onions sliced, and 1 lb.

lean salt pork. Cut the pork into thin slices and fry until cooked, drain off all but 1 tablespoon fat and fry the onions a pale brown. Then put the ingredients in layers in a saucepan, first the pork, then onions, potatoes and so on until used, adding to each layer a little pepper. Add a pint of water, cover closely and simmer fifteen minutes, then add a pint of rich milk, and cover the top with half a pound of small round crackers. Cover again and when the crackers are soft, serve in soup plates. If you live where clams are plentiful, add a quart of cleaved clams when the potatoes are almost done and cook ten minutes.

SEA PIE.

Make a crust of 1 quart flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, mix well, rub in a tablespoon of fat--pork fat melted or lard--and mix into a smooth paste with a pint of water. Line a deep pudding dish with this, put in a layer of onions, then potatoes sliced, then a thin layer of pork in slices, more onions, etc., until the dish is full. Wet the edges, put on a top crust. Tie a floured cloth over the top and drop into a pot of boiling water. Let the water come up two-thirds on the dish, and keep the water boiling for four hours. Invert on a dish, remove the mold and serve hot.

_For Fresh Pork Only._

CORN AND PORK SCALLOP.

Cut about 2 lbs. young pork into neat chops and reject all fat and bone.

Fry them until well cooked and of a pale brown, dust with salt and pepper.

Cut some green corn from the cob. Take a 2-quart dish, put a layer of corn in the bottom, then a layer of pork, and so on until the dish is full, add 1 pint of water, cover and bake for one hour. Remove the cover fifteen minutes before serving, so the top may be nicely browned. Serve with potatoes and a lettuce salad. Onions and pork may be cooked in the same manner.

STUFFED SHOULDER OF PORK.

Take a shoulder of pork and bone it. Cut out the shoulder blade, and then the leg bone. After the cut made to extract the shoulder blade, the flesh has to be turned over the bone as it is cut, like a glove-finger on the hand; if any accidental cut is made through the flesh it must be sewed up, as it would permit the stuffing to escape. For the stuffing, the following is extra nice: Peel 4 apples and core them, chop fine with 2 large onions, 4 leaves of sage, and 4 leaves of lemon thyme. Boil some white potatoes, mash them and add 1 pint to the chopped ingredients with a teaspoon of salt and a little cayenne. Stuff the shoulder with this and sew up all the openings. Dredge with flour, salt and pepper and roast in a hot oven, allowing twenty minutes to the pound. Baste frequently, with hot water at first, and then with gravy from the pan. Serve with currant jelly, potatoes and some green vegetables. Another extra good stuffing for pork is made with sweet potatoes as a basis. Boil the potatoes, peel and mash.

To a half pint of potato add a quarter pint of finely chopped celery, 2 tablespoons chopped onions, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, teaspoon each of salt and chopped parsley and a tablespoon of b.u.t.ter.

PORK ROASTED WITH TOMATOES.

Take a piece for roasting and rub well with salt and pepper, dredge with flour, and pour into the pan a pint of hot water, and place in a brisk oven. This must be done two or three hours before dinner, according to the size of roast; baste the meat often. An hour before dinner peel some tomatoes (about a quart), put them into a bowl and mash with the hands till the pulp is in fine pieces, add to them a chopped onion, a teaspoon of chopped parsley and 1/2 teaspoon each of sage and thyme. Draw the pan containing the roast to the mouth of oven and skim all the fat from the gravy; pour the tomatoes into the pan, and bake for one hour. With this serve a big dish of rice.

PORK WITH SWEET POTATOES.

Prepare the roast as described above, either stuffed or otherwise. When partly done, peel and cut some sweet potatoes into slices about three inches long. Bank these all around the meat, covering it and filling the pan. Baste often with the gravy and bake one hour. Serve with this a Russian salad, made of vegetables. Young carrots may be used in place of sweet potatoes.

RARE OLD FAMILY DISHES, DESCRIBED FOR THIS WORK BY THE BEST COOKS IN AMERICA. EVERY ONE OF THESE RECIPES IS A SPECIAL FAVORITE THAT HAS BEEN OFTEN TRIED AND NEVER FOUND WANTING. NONE OF THESE RECIPES HAS EVER BEFORE BEEN PRINTED, AND ALL WILL BE FOUND SIMPLE, ECONOMICAL AND HYGIENIC.

_Ham._

BOILED.

Wash well a salted, smoked pig's ham, put this in a large kettle of boiling water and boil until tender, remove from the kettle, take off all of the rind, stick in a quant.i.ty of whole cloves, place in a baking pan, sprinkle over with a little sugar, pour over it a cup of cider, or, still better, sherry. Place in the oven and bake brown.

FOR LUNCH.

Mince cold ham fine, either boiled or fried, add a couple of hard-boiled eggs chopped fine, a tablespoon of prepared mustard, a little vinegar and a sprinkling of salt. Put in a mold. When cold cut in thin slices or spread on bread for sandwiches.

BONED.

Having soaked a well-cured ham in tepid water over night, boil it until perfectly tender, putting it on in warm water; take up, let cool, remove the bone carefully, press the ham again into shape, return to the boiling liquor, remove the pot from the fire and let the ham remain in it till cold. Cut across and serve cold.

POTTED.

Mince left-over bits of boiled ham and to every 2 lbs. lean meat allow 1/2 lb. fat. Pound all in a mortar until it is a fine paste, gradually adding 1/2 teaspoon powdered mace, the same quant.i.ty of cayenne, a pinch of allspice and nutmeg. Mix very thoroughly, press into tiny jars, filling them to within an inch of the top; fill up with clarified b.u.t.ter or drippings and keep in a cool place. This is nice for tea or to spread picnic sandwiches.

STEW.

A nice way to use the meat left on a ham bone after the frying slices are removed is to cut it off in small pieces, put into cold water to cover and let it come to a boil. Pour off the water and add enough hot to make sufficient stew for your family. Slice an onion and potatoes into it.

WITH VEAL.

A delicious picnic dish is made of ham and veal. Chop fine equal quant.i.ties of each and put into a baking dish in layers with slices of hard-boiled eggs between; boil down the water in which the veal was cooked, with the bones, till it will jelly when cold; flavor with celery, pepper and salt and pour over the meat. Cover with a piecrust half an inch thick and bake until the crust is done. Slice thin when cold.

OMELET.

Beat 6 eggs very light, add 1/2 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons sweet milk, pepper to taste, have frying pan very hot with 1 tablespoon b.u.t.ter in; turn in the mixture, shake constantly until cooked, then put 1 cup finely chopped ham over the top and roll up like jelly cake, cut in slices.

BAKED.

Most persons boil ham. It is much better baked, if baked right. Soak it for an hour in clean water and wipe dry. Next spread it all over with thin batter and then put it into a deep dish, with sticks under it to keep it out of the gravy. When it is fully done, take off the skin and batter crusted upon the flesh side, and set away to cool. It should bake from six to eight hours. After removing the skin, sprinkle over with two tablespoonfuls of sugar, some black pepper and powdered crackers. Put in pan and return to the oven to brown; then take up and stick cloves through the fat, and dust with powdered cinnamon.

WITH CORN MEAL.

Take bits of cold boiled ham, cut into fine pieces, put in a frying pan with water to cover, season well. When it boils, thicken with corn meal, stirred in carefully, like mush. Cook a short time, pour in a dish to mold, slice off and fry.

b.a.l.l.s.