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WILD BOAR'S HEAD (superlative recipe)

Remove the hair, snout, and bones from a boar's head, and take off the ears. Sprinkle a little salt upon it, and put it into a meat pickle for three or four hours. Meantime, take the white part of the flesh of four young rabbits, and an equal weight of tongue, boiled fat bacon, and peeled truffles. Cut all into one-inch dice, and mix thoroughly. Take the remainder of the rabbit flesh free from skin and gristle, and make forcemeat of it, by chopping it up with four pounds of veal and four pounds of fat bacon, and seasoning all rather highly. Drain the head, wipe it with a soft cloth, sprinkle mixed spices upon it without salt, and cover with layers of forcemeat, intermixed with the truffles, rabbit etc. Form the head into shape, wrap it in a cloth, and put it into a stewpan. Pour over it some good nicely-flavoured stock to which a bottle of Madeira or sherry has been added, and let it stew gently till done enough. Take it up, drain it, remove the cloth, wrap the head in a fresh cloth, and, beginning at the snout, bind it round and round with tape. Leave it until quite cold, remove the tape and the cloth, put it in the oven for a minute, and wipe the grease from the surface. Trim the back part of the head neatly. Fasten the ears in their places with small skewers; they should, meantime, have been boiled separately, but not long enough to cause them to lose their shape. Hide the skewers with lard and mutton suet, and rub the head all over till it is black and shiny with a little lard mixed with some very clean soot. Cut out a piece of the skin in the shape of a shield between the eyes, cover the place with lard, and decorate it with a crest or a monogram, or even a few flowers. Stick the tusks, re-modelled in fat, in their places, and fill the eyes with white of egg and a little piece of beetroot. Surround the head with a wreath of flowers, place it on a dish covered with a napkin, or on a stand, garnish with jelly, and serve. The skin should be removed before the head is carved. Time to boil the head, five hours or more. Probable cost, very uncertain.