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PORK (a I'ltalienne)
Roast the pork in the usual way, and serve it with a sauce prepared as follows. Rub a small saucepan with a clove of garlic, melt an ounce of butter in it, and put in two shallots finely minced. Shake over the fire till the shallots are soft, then dredge a dessert-spoonful of flour over them, and add a quarter of a pint of stock, a table-spoonful of vinegar, a tea-spoonful of bruised capers, half a spoonful of mixed mustard, six peppercorns, and six drops of anchovy essence. Simmer gently for a quarter of an hour, strain, put a small glass of sherry into it, and serve.
A sharp, brown pan sauce in the Italian style as the Victorians understood it: shallots, vinegar, capers and mustard, thickened with a little flour. The roast itself is left to the cook, so the notes below deal mostly with the sauce and with how the pork should be cooked to meet it.
- The hinge: strain itEverything in the sauce, including six whole peppercorns and the minced shallot, is meant to be cooked out and then removed. Skipping the strainer leaves you with gritty peppercorns and a coarse texture rather than the smooth, glossy sauce intended.
- Victorian measuresA quarter of a pint imperial is 5 fl oz, a little under two-thirds of a US cup. A dessert-spoonful is about two teaspoons. The "small glass" of sherry means a sherry glass, conventionally reckoned at about 2 fl oz.
- Mixed mustardThis is prepared mustard rather than the dry powder: mustard already made up with water. Half a spoonful is vague; start with a scant teaspoon and taste after straining.
- Anchovy essenceA thin bottled anchovy extract, a common Victorian store-cupboard item. Six drops is a background savouriness, not a fish flavour. A scant quarter-teaspoon of anchovy paste mashed in, or a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, does the same work.
- Bruised capersBruising means crushing them lightly so they release their brine and acidity into the sauce. Rinse salt-packed capers first; the recipe already carries vinegar and stock salt.
- Roasting the porkThe roast itself is left entirely to the cook; no method or temperature is given here. Modern practice for a loin or leg is a moderate oven around 350F to an internal 145F, then a 10-minute rest; shoulder cuts want longer and slower for the collagen to break down.
- Sherry off the heatThe wine goes in after straining and should only be warmed through. Boiling it drives off the aroma that justifies its presence.
- YieldRoughly two-thirds to three-quarters of a cup of finished sauce, enough for four modest servings. Double it if the joint is large, keeping the vinegar and mustard slightly under proportion.
Cassell's used "à l'Italienne" loosely to signal a brown sauce sharpened with shallot, vinegar and herbs rather than anything genuinely from Italy. In French classical cookery sauce italienne is a demi-glace worked with duxelles, shallots and white wine, and English kitchens borrowed the name for any well-seasoned brown sauce of that family, often with the mushrooms dropped and capers, mustard or anchovy put in their place. The anchovy essence and mixed mustard here are thoroughly British additions: both were available as commercial bottled goods, and their appearance in a sauce with a French name shows how the grand repertoire was quietly rebuilt out of the contents of an ordinary store cupboard. The technique of rubbing the pan with a cut clove of garlic rather than adding garlic outright is often said to belong to a moment when English cooks wanted the scent but distrusted the bulb.