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Brawn Sauce
Mix nicely together two tea-spoonfuls of moist sugar, one of mustard, and one of the best Lucca oil. When quite smooth, add some vinegar and oil in equal proportions, though many prefer more of the one than of the other. Care must be taken to make the sauce quite smooth, and of a nice rich golden colour.
A cold mustard vinaigrette for brawn, given in the loose style of a book that assumed you would taste as you went. Two of the three named ingredients no longer go by these names.
- Lucca oilLucca, in Tuscany, was the source of the finest olive oil sold in Victorian Britain, and "Lucca oil" was shorthand for best-quality olive oil in general. Any good extra-virgin oil does the work; a mild, buttery one suits brawn better than a peppery Sicilian.
- Moist sugarUnrefined or partly refined soft sugar, damp and pale brown. Light brown sugar is the closest match and contributes to the "rich golden colour" the recipe wants; white caster sugar will taste right but look thin.
- MustardA teaspoonful of mustard in an English book of this date most often means dry mustard powder rather than a prepared jarred paste, and the instruction to work it to a smooth paste with sugar and oil fits powder. If you substitute Dijon, use rather more and expect a softer heat and a looser sauce.
- The vague quantity"Some vinegar and oil in equal proportions" is genuinely open. Working from the ratio of the paste, about 4 tablespoons total (2 each) gives a dressing of sensible strength; add it a spoonful at a time and stop when the sharpness suits you.
- Order of workThe hinge is that the sugar, mustard and the single spoon of oil must be worked to a completely smooth paste before any liquid goes in. Mustard powder tipped straight into vinegar is more inclined to stay lumpy.
- VinegarMalt vinegar was the common household vinegar of the period and stands up to pork; cider vinegar is gentler. Whisk it in gradually with the remaining oil so the sauce thickens slightly rather than separating on the plate.
- Yield and useAbout a third of a cup on the quantities suggested above, enough for a platter of brawn or head cheese serving six. Serve at room temperature, whisked again just before it goes to table, since it may separate on standing.
Brawn is boiled pig's head and trotters, the meat picked from the bones and set in its own gelatinous stock, then pressed and sliced cold — a thrifty, faintly austere dish that needed something sharp beside it, which is the whole purpose of this sauce. The mustard-sugar-oil-vinegar formula is essentially the English cold mustard dressing that also went with cold beef and salad greens, and it reads as a pattern rather than a fixed recipe: master the smooth paste and the ratio, and adjust. The confident reference to "the best Lucca oil" is a period marker in itself; olive oil in a late-Victorian British kitchen was a bought condiment for dressings and medicine chests rather than a cooking fat, and Lucca was the brand-name region much as Modena is for balsamic now.