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Pig, Sucking, Stuffing of Truffles For
Take one pound of English truffles. Wash and brush them well, changing the water several times, dry them, and cut each one into quarters. Mince half a pound of fat bacon finely, and pound it to a paste. Put it into a stewpan, with the truffles, a clove of garlic, half a tea-spoonful of chopped thyme, a bay-leaf, and a little grated nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Let these ingredients simmer over a gentle fire for ten minutes, when they will be ready to put inside the pig. When the pig is filled with this forcemeat, a sauce, made as follows, should be sent to table with it. Wash, wipe, and pare four truffles, and chop them very small. Put them into a stewpan, with half a pint of thick brown sauce, a piece of garlic the size of a pea, and a glassful of sherry, and let them boil for ten minutes. Mix with them half a tea-spoonful of Bovril, and a tea-spoonful of the essence of anchovy. Boil up once more, and serve. Probable cost, uncertain. Sufficient for one pig.
A truffle forcemeat for a whole suckling pig, with a matching truffle sauce. The proportions are generous by any standard, and several of the shop-bought ingredients now go by different names.
- English trufflesThese are the summer truffle, Tuber aestivum, once gathered in Wiltshire and Hampshire beechwoods and available domestically rather than imported. A pound of any fresh truffle is now a serious expense; 2-3 oz of summer truffle, or preserved truffle peelings plus a little truffle-scented oil stirred in off the heat, gives the intended effect at a survivable price.
- Do not soak themThe repeated changes of water are for grit only. Brush under a running tap, dry at once, and quarter. Truffles left standing in water lose most of their aroma to it.
- Fat baconThe fat of a cured bacon side, with a high fat-to-lean ratio; green (unsmoked) fat or back fat is closer to the intention than modern smoked rashers, which will overwhelm the truffles. Pounding it to a paste is quickest in a food processor, or ask for ground fatback.
- Bovril and essence of anchovyBovril is still sold; a teaspoon of beef bouillon concentrate does the same job. Essence of anchovy was a thin, sharp bottled sauce — use about a teaspoon of anchovy paste, or half that of colatura, and taste before adding salt, since the brown sauce is already seasoned.
- Thick brown sauceEspagnole or a reduced demi-glace, not bottled table sauce. Half an imperial pint is 10 fl oz, about 1¼ US cups. A "glassful" of sherry here means a wine glass of the period, roughly 2-3 fl oz; dry or amontillado suits it better than cream sherry.
- The ten minutes matterThe forcemeat is only being warmed through so the fat carries the truffle aroma and the garlic and thyme bloom. Keep it at a bare simmer and remove the bay leaf before stuffing. It should not brown or fry.
- Filling and roastingA suckling pig commonly runs 10-20 lb; this quantity fills a smaller one comfortably. Stuff loosely, close the cavity with skewers and butcher's twine, and roast until the thickest part of the shoulder is at least 145F with a rest, checking that the stuffing itself has reached 165F.
- Yield"Sufficient for one pig" is the only guide given. The sauce as written makes about a cup and a half — light for a whole pig at table, and worth doubling if you are serving eight or more.
Cassell's belongs to the last generation of English cookbooks that could treat truffles as a domestic ingredient rather than an imported luxury. The summer truffle grew in quantity under the beeches of the southern chalk downs, and until the early twentieth century there were men in Wiltshire who hunted it professionally with trained dogs; the trade is generally said to have died out around the First World War. That is why the recipe specifies "English truffles" without apology. The dish itself is a stuffed suckling pig in the French manner orforforcemeat bound with pounded fat, a brown sauce sharpened with sherry and anchovy — but the two proprietary bottles, Bovril and essence of anchovy, place it firmly in the late-Victorian British kitchen, where commercial extracts had begun to stand in for the long-simmered stocks of the professional kitchen.