Home › The Principles of Cookery › PORK (a la mode)
PORK (a la mode)
Large pork, such as portions of the shoulder, loin, or spare-rib of large bacon hogs, may be cooked as follows. Rub the joint with pepper and salt, and put it into a large saucepan which has a closely-fitting lid. Add two or three onions and carrots, with half a dozen sticks of celery, four sage-leaves, a bunch of parsley, a small sprig of marjoram and thyme, and as much stock or water as will cover the whole. Let the liquid boil, skim carefully, then draw it to the side of the fire, and let it simmer gently for three or four hours, according to the size of the joint. When the pork is done enough, lift it out, put the vegetables round it, strain and thicken a portion of the gravy, and pour it boiling hot over the joint. When the pork is removed from the table, trim it neatly, place on a clean dish, strain and thicken the rest of the gravy, and pour it over the meat. It will be ready for serving when cold. Time to boil the pork, twenty-two minutes per pound from the time the water boils. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A long, gentle braise of a large pork joint in aromatic stock, served hot and then again cold in its own set gravy. Nothing here is difficult, but the two timing figures given do not agree and the cut names have shifted.
- The two timings conflictThe text says simmer three to four hours, then gives twenty-two minutes per pound. At that rate a 4 lb joint would be done in about ninety minutes. Trust temperature over both: a shoulder or spare-rib wants an internal 190-200F for the collagen to give way, which on a low simmer generally takes three hours or more for a joint of that size.
- Bacon hogsLarge bacon hogs were heavier animals killed at a greater weight and destined mainly for curing rather than sold as fresh pork. A modern equivalent is bone-in pork shoulder or a rack-end of loin; buy 4-6 lb and expect a leaner joint than the original assumed.
- Spare-ribIn British butchery spare-rib is a shoulder cut, not American spare ribs. Ask for shoulder if the term causes confusion.
- Keep it below a boilThe instruction to draw the pan to the side of the fire is the hinge. Bring to a boil once, skim, then hold at a bare tremble around 180F. A rolling boil tightens the muscle fibres and squeezes out the juice the long cook is meant to conserve.
- SkimmingSkim thoroughly in the first ten minutes, before the scum breaks up and disperses. Whatever you leave will end up in the gravy you later thicken.
- Thickening the gravyNo proportion is given. A roux of 1 oz butter and 1 oz flour per pint of strained cooking liquid gives a coating sauce; reduce the liquid first, as three hours of simmering in stock produces plenty and it will taste thin if not concentrated.
- The cold serviceThe gravy poured over the trimmed cold joint sets to a light jelly from the bones and skin, which is the point of the second pouring. Chill it promptly and keep it refrigerated rather than leaving it out overnight as the original household would have done.
- YieldA 5 lb bone-in joint serves about six hot with the vegetables, with some left over for a cold dish the next day.
"A la mode" attached to meat in nineteenth-century English cookery books is generally taken to mean not anything fashionable so much as braised in the French manner: seared or seasoned, then stewed slowly in stock with root vegetables and a bundle of herbs, the model usually cited being boeuf a la mode. Cassell's is applying that method to a large, fatty joint from a bacon hog, the sort of animal kept chiefly for salting down rather than for fresh roasting, and the recipe's real interest is its assumption that one joint will do two meals. Serving a braised joint hot, then trimming it and setting it under its own jellied gravy for the cold table, is often said to have been common in households cooking large pieces of meat without refrigeration, and cold pork under jelly is a familiar sight on Victorian supper and luncheon menus. The costing of 10d. per pound is consistent with the cut: shoulder and spare-rib were working cuts, priced well below loin or leg.