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Fried Porksteaks
Fry like beefsteaks, with pepper and salt; or sprinkle with dry powdered sage if the sausage flavor is liked. - Mrs. B. A. Fay.
Two lines of instruction that assume you already know how the book fries beefsteak: a heavy pan, high heat, no lid, no crowding, and the meat turned once. What needs filling in is the cut and the finish temperature.
- What a pork steak isThe recipe does not say, but a pork steak of this period was most likely a slice cut across the shoulder or the fresh ham, bone in and perhaps half an inch thick. The nearest modern equivalent is a blade or shoulder steak; supermarket pork chops from the loin are leaner and will dry out faster under the same treatment.
- "Fry like beefsteaks"The instruction is to be read against the book's own beefsteak directions, which are not reproduced here; period fried-steak methods generally mean a hot pan, a little fat, the meat turned once and served straight out. Shoulder pork gives up enough of its own fat that added grease is usually unnecessary; a thin film to start is plenty.
- DonenessNineteenth-century pork was cooked hard and grey out of fear of trichinosis. Current guidance for whole cuts is 145F at the centre with a three-minute rest, which leaves the meat faintly pink and far juicier. Shoulder steaks with a good deal of connective tissue are better taken further, to about 160F, or braised instead.
- Powdered sageThis is the whole point of the second half of the recipe: sage is the dominant seasoning in American breakfast sausage, so sprinkling it on plain pork borrows the flavour without grinding anything. Dried rubbed sage, about a quarter teaspoon per steak, applied with the salt and pepper. Ground sage is more concentrated and turns bitter if it scorches in the pan.
- Seasoning timingSalt the steaks either right before they go in the pan or a good half hour ahead. Salting ten minutes out draws moisture to the surface and you lose the browning.
- The pan drippingsThe recipe says nothing about them, but a spoonful of flour stirred into the fat, then milk or water, gives the plain white pork gravy commonly served with fried pork.
- YieldOne shoulder steak per person, or two if they are thin. Figure six to eight ounces of raw meat each.
Buckeye Cookery was compiled in Ohio in the late 1870s from contributions by named local women, which is why this entry ends with Mrs. B. A. Fay rather than a headnote. Its brevity is characteristic: the entry assumes a cook who already knows the book's beefsteak directions and needs only to be told what is different. In a household that kept a hog, much of the animal went into the barrel as salt pork, ham and bacon, and fresh cuts such as steaks and chops were what got eaten in the days immediately after butchering. The sage variation points the same way: sausage was the flavour people associated with fresh pork.