PORK
Pork is the flesh and fat of pig or hog. Different parts of the
creature, when dressed, take different names.
The chine and spareribs, which correspond to the loin in lamb and veal,
are used for roasts or steaks. Two ribs are left on the chine. The hind
legs furnish _hams_. These are cured, salted, and smoked. Sugar-cured
hams are considered the best. Pickle, to which is added light brown
sugar, molasses, and saltpetre, is introduced close to bone; hams are
allowed to hang one week, then smoked with hickory wood. _Shoulders_ are
usually corned, or salted and smoked, though sometimes cooked fresh.
_Pigs’ feet_ are boiled until tender, split, and covered with vinegar
made from white wine. _Hocks_, the part just above the feet, are corned,
and much used by Germans. _Heads_ are soused, and cooked by boiling. The
flank, which lies just below the ribs, is salted and smoked, and
furnishes _bacon_. The best pieces of fat salt pork come from the back,
on either side of backbone.
Fat, when separated from flesh and membrane, is tried out and called
lard. _Leaf lard_ is the best, and is tried out from the leaf shaped
pieces of solid fat which lie inside the flank. _Sausages_ are trimmings
of lean and fat meat, minced, highly seasoned, and forced into thin
casings made of the prepared entrails. _Little pigs_ (four weeks old)
are sometimes killed; dressed, and roasted whole.
Pork contains the largest percentage of fat of any meat. When eaten
fresh it is the most difficult of digestion, and although found in
market through the entire year, it should be but seldom served, and then
only during the winter months. By curing, salting, and smoking, pork is
rendered more wholesome. _Bacon_, next to butter and cream, is the most
easily assimilated of all fatty foods.
Pork Chops
Wipe chops, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place in a hot frying-pan,
and cook slowly until tender, and well browned on each side.
Pork Chops with Fried Apples
Arrange Pork Chops on a platter, and surround with slices of apples, cut
one-half inch thick, fried in the fat remaining in pan.
Roast Pork
Wipe pork, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on a rack in a
dripping-pan, and dredge meat and bottom of pan with flour. Bake in a
moderate oven three or four hours, basting every fifteen minutes with
fat in pan. Make a gravy as for other roasts.
Pork Tenderloins with Sweet Potatoes
Wipe tenderloins, put in a dripping-pan, and brown quickly in a hot
oven; then sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake forty-five minutes,
basting every fifteen minutes.
=Sweet Potatoes.= Pare six potatoes and parboil ten minutes, drain, put
in pan with meat, and cook until soft, basting when basting meat.
Breakfast Bacon
See Liver and Bacon, page 207.
Fried Salt Pork with Codfish
Cut fat salt pork in one-fourth inch slices, cut gashes one-third inch
apart in slices, nearly to rind. Try out in a hot frying-pan until brown
and crisp, occasionally turning off fat from pan. Serve around strips of
codfish which have been soaked in pan of lukewarm water and allowed to
stand on back of range until soft. Serve with Drawn Butter Sauce, boiled
potatoes, and beets.
Broiled Ham
Soak thin slices of ham one hour in lukewarm water. Drain, wipe, and
broil three minutes.
Fried Ham and Eggs
Wipe ham, remove one-half outside layer of fat, and place in frying-pan.
Cover with tepid water and let stand on back of range thirty minutes;
drain, and dry on a towel. Heat pan, put in ham, brown quickly on one
side, turn and brown other side; or soak ham over night, dry, and cook
in hot frying-pan. If cooked too long, ham will become hard and dry.
Serve with fried eggs cooked in the dried-out ham fat.
Barbecued Ham
Soak thin slices of ham one hour in lukewarm water; drain, wipe, and
cook in a hot frying-pan until slightly browned. Remove to serving dish
and add to fat in pan three tablespoons vinegar mixed with one and
one-half teaspoons mustard, one-half teaspoon sugar, and one-eighth
teaspoon paprika. When thoroughly heated pour over ham and serve at
once.
Boiled Ham
Soak several hours or over night in cold water to cover. Wash
thoroughly, trim off hard skin near end of bone, put in a kettle, cover
with cold water, heat to boiling-point, and cook slowly until tender.
See Time Table for Cooking, page 28. Remove kettle from range and set
aside, that ham may partially cool; then take from water, remove outside
skin, sprinkle with sugar and fine cracker crumbs, and stick with cloves
one-half inch apart. Bake one hour in a slow oven. Serve cold, thinly
sliced.
Roast Ham with Champagne Sauce
Place a whole baked ham in the oven fifteen minutes before serving time,
that outside fat may be heated. Remove to a hot platter, garnish bone
end with a paper ruffle, and serve with Champagne Sauce.
Westphalian Ham
These hams are imported from Germany, and need no additional cooking.
Cut in very thin slices for serving.
Broiled Pigs’ Feet
Wipe, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and broil six to eight minutes.
Serve with Maître d’Hôtel Butter or Sauce Piquante.
Fried Pigs’ Feet
Wipe, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs, fry
in deep fat, and drain.
Sausages
Cut apart a string of sausages. Pierce each sausage several times with a
carving fork. Put in frying-pan, cover with boiling water, and cook
fifteen minutes; drain, return to frying-pan, and fry until well
browned. Serve with fried apples. Sausages are often broiled same as
bacon and apples baked in pan under them.
Boston Baked Beans
Pick over one quart pea beans, cover with cold water, and soak over
night. In morning, drain, cover with fresh water, heat slowly (keeping
water below boiling-point), and cook until skins will burst,—which is
best determined by taking a few beans on the tip of a spoon and blowing
on them, when skins will burst if sufficiently cooked. Beans thus tested
must, of course, be thrown away. Drain beans, throwing bean-water out of
doors, not in sink. Scald rind of three-fourths pound fat salt pork,
scrape, remove one-fourth inch slice and put in bottom of bean-pot. Cut
through rind of remaining pork every one-half inch, making cuts one inch
deep. Put beans in pot and bury pork in beans, leaving rind exposed. Mix
one tablespoon salt, one tablespoon molasses, and three tablespoons
sugar; add one cup boiling water, and pour over beans; then add enough
more boiling water to cover beans. Cover bean-pot, put in oven, and bake
slowly six or eight hours, uncovering the last hour of cooking, that
rind may become brown and crisp. Add water as needed. Many feel sure
that by adding with seasonings one-half tablespoon mustard, the beans
are more easily digested. If pork mixed with lean is preferred, use less
salt.
The fine reputation which Boston Baked Beans have gained has been
attributed to the earthen bean-pot with small top and bulging sides in
which they are supposed to be cooked. Equally good beans have often been
eaten where a five-pound lard pail was substituted for the broken
bean-pot.
Yellow-eyed beans are very good when baked.