Home Pork Making Part 11

Put pork bones in pot of cold salted water. Add the following ingredients, in a cheesecloth bag: A few pepper seeds, a bit of horse-radish, mace, and 1 sliced turnip. Boil as for beef soup; strain and add a teaspoon of rice flour to each pint, and let come to a boil. Serve with crackers.

PORK STEW

Slice and fry in a kettle from 1/4 to 1/2 lb. salt pork, drain off the fat and save for shortening, add 3 pints boiling water, 2 or 3 onions sliced thin, 1 quart potatoes sliced and pared, a sprinkling of pepper, large spoon flour mixed in 1 cup of cold water. Let the onions boil a few moments before adding the potatoes and flour. Five minutes before serving, add 1 dozen crackers, split and moistened with hot water, or make dumplings as for any stew.

DRY STEW.

Place slices of pork in the frying pan and fill full with chipped potatoes; pour over a little water and cover tightly, and cook until the pork begins to fry, then loosen from the bottom with a wide knife and pour over more water, and so on until done. Pepper and salt and a bit of b.u.t.ter.

OLD-FAs.h.i.+ONED STEW.

Place 6 large slices of pork in the kettle with nearly a quart of water, let it boil half an hour, then add 8 sliced potatoes and 2 sliced onions, and when nearly done add a little flour, pepper and salt, and a lump of b.u.t.ter.

CHOWDER.

Cut 4 slices of salt pork in dice, place in kettle and fry, add 6 good-sized onions chopped fine, let fry while preparing 8 potatoes, then add 1 quart boiling water and the potatoes sliced thin. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Boil one-half hour.

_Miscellaneous._

BACON, BROILED OR FRIED.

The first essential is to have the bacon with a streak of lean and a streak of fat, and to cut or slice it as thin as possible. Then lay it in a shallow tin and set it inside a hot stove. It will toast evenly and the slices will curl up and be so dry that they may be taken in the fingers to eat. The lard that exudes may be thickened with flour, a cup of sweet new milk and a pinch of black pepper added, and nice gravy made. Or if preferred, the bacon, thinly sliced, may be fried on a hot skillet, just turning it twice, letting it slightly brown on both sides. Too long in the hot skillet, the bacon gets hard and will have a burned taste.

BRAINS.

Lay the brains in salt and water for an hour to draw out the blood. Pick them over and take out any bits of bone and membrane. Cook for half an hour in a small quant.i.ty of water. When cooked drain off the water, and to each brain add a little pepper, nearly an even teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of b.u.t.ter and 1 beaten egg. Cook until the egg thickens. Or when the brains are cooked, drain off the water, season with salt, pepper and sage.

PORK AND BEANS.

Pick over and let soak over night 1 quart beans; in the morning wash and drain, and place in a kettle with cold water, with 1/2 teaspoon soda, boil about twenty minutes, then drain and put in earthen bean dish with 2 tablespoons mola.s.ses, season with pepper. In the center of the beans put 1 lb. well-washed salt pork, with the rind scored in slices or squares, rind side uppermost. Cover all with hot water and bake six hours or longer, in a moderate oven. Keep covered so they will not burn on the top, but an hour or so before serving remove the pork to another dish and allow it to brown. Beans should also brown over the top.

BOILED DINNER.

Put a piece of salt pork to cook in cold water about 9 o'clock. At 10 o'clock add a few beets, at 11 o'clock a head of cabbage, quartered.

One-half hour later add the potatoes. Serve very hot.

GERMAN WICK-A-WACK.

Save the rinds of salt pork, boil until tender, then chop very fine, add an equal amount of dried bread dipped in hot water and chopped. Season with salt, pepper and summer savory; mix, spread one inch deep in baking dish, cover with sweet milk. Bake one-half hour. Very nice.

BROILED PORK.

Soak the pork in cold water over night. Wipe dry and broil over coals until crisp. Pour over it 1/2 pint sweet cream. Ham cooked this way is delicious.

LUNCH LOAF.

Chop remnants of cold boiled ham or salt pork, add crushed crackers and from 3 to 6 eggs, according to the amount of your meat. Bake in a round baking powder box, and when cold it can be sliced for the table.

PORK HASH.

Take sc.r.a.ps of cold pork and ham, chop very fine, put in frying pan, add a very little water, let cook a few minutes, then add twice this amount of chopped potato. Salt and pepper to taste, fry and serve hot.

FOR SUNDAY LUNCHEON.

Take the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs saved from ribs, backbone, jowl, shanks of ham and shoulder, and all the nice bits of meat too small for ordinary use; place in a kettle with sufficient water to barely cover meat, and boil slowly until quite tender. Fit a piece of stout cheesecloth in a flat-bottomed dish and cover with alternate strips of fat and lean meat while hot; sprinkle sparingly with white pepper, add another layer of meat and a few very thin slices of perfectly sound tart apples. Repeat until pork is used, then sew up the ends of the cloth compactly, place between agate platters and subject to considerable pressure over night. Served cold this makes a very appetizing addition to Sunday suppers or luncheon.

PORK CHEESE.

Cut 2 lbs. cold roast pork into small pieces, allowing 1/4 lb. fat to each pound of lean; salt and pepper to taste. Pound in a mortar a dessert spoon minced parsley, 4 leaves of sage, a very small bunch of savory herbs, 2 blades of mace, a little nutmeg, half a teaspoon of minced lemon peel. Mix thoroughly with the meat, put into a mold and pour over it enough well-flavored strong stock to make it very moist. Bake an hour and a half and let it cool in the mold. Serve cold, cut in thin slices and garnished with parsley or cress. This is a cooking school recipe. For ordinary use the powdered spices, which may be obtained at almost any country store, answer every purpose. Use 1/4 teaspoon sage, 1/2 teaspoon each of summer savory and thyme, and a pinch of mace.

PORK FLOUR-GRAVY.

Take the frying pan after pork has been fried in it, put in a piece of b.u.t.ter half as large as an egg, let it get very hot, then put in a spoonful of flour sprinkled over the bottom of the pan. Let this get thoroughly browned, then turn boiling water on it, say about a pint. Now take a tablespoon of flour, heaping, wet it up with a cup of sweet milk and stir into the boiling water, add salt and pepper to taste, and a small piece more b.u.t.ter, cook well and serve.

PORK OMELET.

Cut the slices of pork quite thin, discarding the rind, fry on both sides to a light brown, remove from the spider, have ready a batter made of from 2 or 3 eggs (as the amount of pork may require), beaten up with a little flour and a little sweet milk, pouring half of this batter into the spider. Then lay in the pork again, and pour the remaining part of the batter over the pork. When cooked on the one side, cut in squares and turn. Serve hot. Sometimes the pork is cut in small squares before adding the batter.

ANOTHER OMELET.

Put 1 cup cold fried salt pork (cut in dice) and 3 tablespoons sweet milk on back of stove to simmer, then beat 6 eggs and 1 teaspoon salt until just blended. Put 2 tablespoons b.u.t.ter in frying pan. When hot add eggs and shake vigorously until set, then add the hot creamed pork, spread over top, fold, and serve immediately.

PIG'S FEET.

Cut off the feet at the first joint, then cut the legs into as many pieces as there are joints, wash and sc.r.a.pe them well and put to soak over night in cold, slightly salted water; in the morning sc.r.a.pe again and change the water; repeat at night. The next morning put them on to boil in cold water to cover, skim carefully, boil till very tender, and serve either hot or cold, with a brown sauce made of part of the water in which they were boiled, and flavored with tomato or chopped cuc.u.mber pickles. If the pig's feet are cooled and then browned in the oven, they will be much nicer than if served directly from the kettle in which they were boiled. Save all the liquor not used for the sauce, for pig's feet are very rich in jelly; when cold, remove the fat, which should be clarified, and boil the liquor down to a glaze; this may be potted, when it will keep a long time and is useful for glazing, or it may be used for soups either before or after boiling, down.--[R. W.

PICKLED PIG'S FEET.

Clean them well, boil until very tender, remove all the bones. Chop the meat, add it to the water they were boiled in, salt to taste. Add enough vinegar to give a pleasing acid taste, pour into a dish to cool. When firm, cut in slices. Or leave out the vinegar and serve catsup of any kind with the meat. Or before cooking the feet, wrap each one in cloth and boil seven hours. When cold take off the cloth and cut each foot in two pieces. Serve cold with catsup or pepper sauce or horse-radish. Or the feet may be put into a jar and covered with cold vinegar, to which is added a handful of whole cloves.--[A. L. N.