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Pork, Fresh, Stewed
Cut a spare-rib of any fresh lean pork into chops. Fry these in a little fat until they are lightly browned. Take them up, drain them, put them into a clean stewpan, and pour over them as much boiling water as will cover them. Let the liquid boil once more, then draw it to the side, and simmer very gently until the chops are done enough. Thicken the gravy with flour and butter, season with pepper and salt; boil a few minutes longer, and serve the pork on a hot dish with the gravy poured round it. Time, four minutes to fry the pork; three-quarters of an hour to stew. Probable cost, 10d. per pound.
A plain braise of pork chops in water, thickened at the end into a pan gravy. The technique holds up; only the cut, the seasoning point and the timing need attention.
- The cutA Victorian "spare-rib" of pork is the neck-end rib section, closer to what a butcher now sells as pork shoulder or blade chops, not the belly ribs sold as spareribs in the United States. Bone-in shoulder chops about 1 inch thick are the right substitute; loin chops will dry out over 45 minutes.
- Season earlier than toldThe recipe seasons only at the gravy stage, which leaves the meat itself flat. Salt the chops before frying and reserve the pepper and any final salt for the finished sauce.
- Water, not stockBoiling water rather than broth keeps the dish cheap. Note that the recipe itself drains the chops into a clean stewpan, so the frying-pan residue is not part of the original plan; deglazing it with a little of that water and adding it will nonetheless save the browning.
- Simmer means simmer"Draw it to the side" is a coal-range instruction for moving the pan off direct heat. On a modern hob, once it has come to the boil, hold it at the barest tremble; a rolling boil in 45 minutes will squeeze shoulder meat tough and cloud the gravy.
- DonenessPork shoulder is not done at 145F here; it wants the collagen softened, so it is ready when a fork slides in with no resistance, generally 45 to 60 minutes. Thin chops may be there sooner.
- Thickening with flour and butterThis is beurre manie: equal weights of soft butter and flour worked to a paste and whisked into the simmering liquid in small pieces. Roughly 1 oz of each will thicken a pint of gravy; the few minutes' further boiling is there to cook out the raw flour taste.
- Skim firstPork neck throws a good deal of fat. Spoon it off before thickening or the gravy will be greasy and refuse to bind properly.
- Yield and servingFour to six chops feeds four. Something sharp on the side is wanted against the fat: apple sauce, pickled red cabbage, or mustard.
Cassell's dictionary catalogued cookery the way a reference work catalogues anything, so fresh pork gets entries for roasting, broiling, salting and stewing, each with a probable cost per pound attached. The tenpence quoted here is a housekeeping figure as much as a culinary one, and pork was the cheap meat, kept by cottagers and butchered in the cold months. The recipe calls for stewing in water rather than stock. The pairing of fresh pork with autumn and winter reflects a caution that predates reliable refrigeration and had more to do with spoilage than with anything in the meat itself.