Cut two or three pounds of lean fresh pork into strips as long and as
wide as your middle finger. Line a buttered dish with puff-paste; put
in a layer of pork seasoned with pepper, salt, and nutmeg or mace;
next a layer of juicy apples, sliced and covered with about an ounce
of white sugar; then more pork, and so on until you are ready for the
paste cover, when pour in half a pint of sweet cider or wine, and stick
bits of butter all over the top. Cover with a thick lid of puff-paste,
cut a slit in the top, brush over with beaten egg, and bake an hour and
a half.
This is an English dish, and is famous in the region from which it
takes its name. It is much liked by those who have tried it, and is
considered by some to be equal to our mince-pie.
Yorkshire pork-pie is made in the same way, with the omission of the
apples, sugar, and nutmeg, and the addition of sage to the seasoning.
SAUSAGE (_No. 1_).
6 lbs. lean fresh pork.
3 lbs. fat fresh pork.
12 teaspoonfuls powdered sage.
6 teaspoonfuls black pepper.
6 teaspoonfuls salt.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered mace.
2 teaspoonfuls powdered cloves.
1 grated nutmeg.
Grind the meat, fat and lean, in a sausage-mill, or chop it very fine.
The mill is better, and the grinding does not occupy one-tenth of
the time that chopping does, to say nothing of the labor. One can be
bought for three or four dollars, and will well repay the purchaser.
Mix the seasoning in with your hands, taste to be sure all is right,
and pack down in stone jars, pouring melted lard on top. Another good
way of preserving them is, to make long, narrow bags of stout muslin,
large enough to contain, each, enough sausage for a family dish. Fill
these with the meat, dip in melted lard, and hang from the beams of the
cellar.
If you wish to pack in the intestines of the hog, they should be
carefully prepared as follows: Empty them, cut them in lengths, and lay
for two days in salt and water. Turn them inside out, and lay in soak
one day longer. Scrape them, rinse well in soda and water, wipe, and
blow into one end, having tied up the other with a bit of twine. If
they are whole and clear, stuff with the meat; tie up and hang in the
store-room or cellar.
These are fried in the cases, in a clean, dry frying-pan, until
brown. If you have the sausage-meat in bulk, make into small, round
flat cakes, and fry in the same way. Some dip in egg and pounded
cracker—others roll in flour before cooking. Their own fat will cook
them. Send to table dry and hot, but do not let them fry hard. When
one side is done, turn the other. The fire should be very brisk. Ten
minutes, or twelve at the outside, is long enough to cook them.