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Stuffed and Roasted Leg of Pork
Mince finely 3 large onions which have been previously boiled or not, according to taste; mix with them half a dozen chopped sage-leaves, 4 ounces of bread crumbs, an ounce of butter, a little pepper and salt, and half an apple chopped small. Bind the force-meat together with the yolk of an egg. Raise the skin round the knuckle of the leg of pork, fasten it securely, and brush the rind all over with sweet oil. Put it in a moderately hot oven and baste liberally. Serve the meat on a hot dish, and send brown gravy and apple sauce to table with it. The flavor of this joint will be improved if it is stuffed the day before it is roasted. The Germans stuff a leg of pork with sour apples only. Time, a joint weighing eight pounds will require three hours. Sufficient for a dozen persons.
A straightforward large roast with a sage, onion and apple forcemeat pushed up under the skin at the shank end. Two things need translating: the oven, and the doneness.
- Stuff at roasting time, not the day beforeThe instruction to stuff a day ahead means raw egg-bound crumbs sitting against raw pork in the warm part of a larder. Make the forcemeat a day ahead if you like the flavour, chill it separately, and pack it under the skin just before the joint goes in the oven.
- "Moderately hot oven"Read this as somewhere around 375F. Some modern recipes start a rind joint hot, around 450F for 20-30 minutes, to blister the skin, then drop to 350-375F for the remainder.
- Cooking time and temperatureThree hours for 8 lb is close to modern practice for a bone-in leg, but go by a thermometer rather than the clock: 145F in the thickest part of the meat away from bone, with a 3-minute rest, and 165F in the stuffing itself. Stuffing under the skin heats more slowly than the surrounding meat.
- Sweet oilPlain olive oil, not a flavoured or scented oil. Its job here is to help the rind crisp; score the rind in narrow lines first and rub it with salt as well.
- Force-meatSimply stuffing. Four ounces of bread crumbs is about 2 cups of fresh soft crumbs, and an ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons.
- Raising the skinWork a thin knife or your fingers between rind and flesh from the knuckle end to make a pocket, fill it, then secure the flap with poultry skewers or a few stitches of kitchen twine so the forcemeat does not escape into the pan.
- Basting and gravyBasting a scored rind with its own fat softens the crackling; baste the meat end and leave the rind dry if you want it brittle. The recipe does not say how the brown gravy is made; pan drippings skimmed of fat, with stock and a little flour, will serve.
- YieldAn 8 lb bone-in leg does feed about twelve, generously, with leftovers worth having cold.