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Pork, Spare-Rib of, Roasted
A spare-rib of pork usually weights about eight or nine pounds, and will take from two to three hours to roast it thoroughly--not exactly according to its weight, but the thickness of the meat upon it, which varies very much. Lay the thick end nearest to the fire. A proper bald spare-rib of eight pounds' weight (so called because almost all the meat is pared off), with a steady fire, will be done in an hour and a quarter--there is so little meat on a bald sparerib that if you have a large, fierce fire it will be burnt before it is warmed through. Joint it nicely, and crack the ribs across as you do ribs of lamb. When you put it down to roast, dust on some flour, and baste with a little butter. Dry a dozen sage-leaves, rub them through a hair sieve, and put them into the top of a pepper-box, and about a quarter of an hour before the meat is done baste it with butter, then dust with the pulverised sage, or sprinkle with duck-stuffing. Some people carve a spare-rib by cutting out in slices the thick part at the bottom of the bones. When this meat is cut away the bones may be easily separated, and are esteemed very sweet picking. Apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and good mustard, are indispensable.
This is open-hearth cookery: the joint hangs or turns in front of a fire, not in an enclosed oven, which is why the book talks about the thickness of the meat and the fierceness of the fire rather than giving a temperature. Translated to an oven, the timings shorten and the guesswork disappears.
- What the cut isAn English spare-rib of pork is not American spareribs from the belly. It comes from the shoulder end, the rib bones with the meat over them, and the nearest modern equivalent is a bone-in shoulder or rib roast. Ask for it whole, chine cracked, at 8 to 9 lb.
- A "bald" spare-ribThe bald version has had nearly all the meat pared away for other dishes, leaving little more than bones with a thin covering. Modern butchers rarely produce this deliberately, though a French-trimmed rack is close. It is the reason the book warns against a fierce fire.
- Oven equivalentRoast at about 325F (165C) on a rack in a shallow pan. A meaty 8 to 9 lb rib roast takes roughly 2 to 3 hours, as the book says; a very lean, closely trimmed one can be done in about an hour and a quarter. "Lay the thick end nearest to the fire" becomes: put the thick end where your own oven runs hottest.
- The instruction that mattersJudge by internal temperature, not the clock, because the book itself says the thickness varies. Pull the roast at 145F (63C) in the thickest muscle away from bone and rest it 15 to 20 minutes. Pork was often taken further than this in the past, but it is not necessary and dries this cut badly.
- Jointing and crackingHave the butcher joint it and crack across the ribs, as the book directs, sawing the chine if necessary. Doing it before roasting makes carving and separating the bones easier afterwards.
- Flour and butterThe flour dredge plus butter basting was a common way to build a crust in front of a fire. In an oven, rubbing the fat with salt and a little flour still helps; if the joint has its rind on -- which the book does not say -- raising the heat to 425F for the last 15 minutes will help the crackling.
- Dried sageA dozen sage leaves dried and sieved is about 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground sage. Add it in the last 15 minutes as directed, since sage scorches and turns bitter over a long roast. "Duck-stuffing" here means the usual sage and onion mixture.
- ServingAn 8 to 9 lb joint of this kind serves 8 to 10. Apple sauce, mashed potatoes and "good mustard" are the accompaniments the book calls indispensable, and it notes that the picked-over bones are "esteemed very sweet picking."
Roast pork with sage and apple sauce is one of the oldest fixed pairings in English cookery, sage being often said to correct rich pork fat and apple to supply acid. The passage recalls William Kitchiner's The Cook's Oracle (1817), which uses the same distinctive detail of drying sage leaves, sieving them and keeping the powder in a pepper-box. The cut itself belonged to household economy rather than the butcher's window, the ribs being left "bald" once the meat had been stripped. What remained was cheap, quick-cooking and eaten with the fingers, which is why the book bothers to note that the bones are "very sweet picking."