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Pork, Roast Loin of
INGREDIENTS. Pork; a little salt. AVERAGE COST, 9d. per lb.
Score the skin in strips rather more than 1/4 1/4 inch apart, and place the joint at a good distance from the fire, on account of the the crackling, which would harden before the meat would be heated through, were it placed too near. If very lean, it should be rubbed over with a little salad oil, and kept well basted all the time it is at the fire.
Pork should be very thoroughly cooked, but not dry; and be careful never to send it to table the least underdone, as nothing is more unwholesome and disagreeable than underdressed white meats. Serve with apple sauce and a little gravy made in the dripping-pan. A stuiling of sage-andonion may be made separately, and baked in a flat dish: this method is better than putting it in the meat, as many persons have so great an objection to the flavour.
TIME. A loin of pork weighing 5 Us., about 2 hours; allow more time should it be very fat.
SEASONABLE from September to March.
Pork, Loin of, To Carve. As with a loin of mutton, it is essential that this be well jointed before cooking, also that the crackling be scored, then there A LOIN OF PORK.
B is no difficulty in carving it. The knife is inserted at A and carried to B, and the chops should be divided neatly and evenly.
This is an open-fire roast translated for an oven, and the whole method is built around one conflict: crackling wants fierce heat, the loin wants gentle heat. Beeton solves it by distance from the fire; in an oven you solve it with a two-stage temperature.
- The hinge: heat orderStart the joint at 450F for 20-25 minutes to blister and open the scored skin, then drop to 350F for the remainder. (Beeton gives no temperatures; she manages the same problem by distance from the fire, warning that too close, the crackling hardens before the meat is heated through.) Reversing the order tends to give leathery skin that never puffs.
- Timing and donenessHer two hours for a 5 lb loin works out at roughly 25 minutes per pound, which is about right at 350F after the initial blast. Cook to an internal 145F at the thickest point and rest 15 minutes; the joint will still be faintly pink at the centre and is fully safe.
- Why she says "never underdone"The Victorian insistence on hard-cooked pork long predates any understanding of trichinella, though that parasite was a genuine hazard in nineteenth-century pigs; the rule was general suspicion of underdressed "white meats." Commercial pork today carries essentially no trichinella risk, and the modern 145F standard reflects that. Cooking to her standard produces the dry meat she also tells you to avoid.
- Salad oilSimply a bland table oil, in her day usually olive. Any neutral oil serves. Skip it on a modern loin with a decent fat cap; use it only if the joint is genuinely lean, such as a boned loin roast.
- CracklingScore just through the skin and into the fat, not into the meat, at slightly over a quarter inch apart as she says. Dry the skin thoroughly, rub with fine salt, and do not baste the skin itself. Basting is for the lean flesh only, and liquid on the rind will stop it crisping.
- JointingHer carving note assumes the butcher has chined the loin, cutting through the backbone so the chops separate. Ask for this at the counter; without it the roast is very difficult to carve into even chops.
- Sage and onion, baked apartHer advice still holds. Baked in a shallow dish it develops crisp edges, and it will not slow the roast or leave a cool centre in the meat.
- Gravy from the dripping panPour off most of the fat, deglaze the tin with stock or cider over direct heat, and scrape up the browned residue. Nothing is thickened here; it is meant to be a thin pan juice served alongside the apple sauce.
- YieldA 5 lb loin serves six to eight generously with sauce and stuffing.
"Seasonable from September to March" is the oldest thing on this page. Pigs were traditionally killed in the cold months, after they had fattened on autumn windfalls and acorns and when the weather would keep fresh meat, and the rule survived in cookery books long after town butchers were selling pork year round. The pairing with apple sauce belongs to the same rhythm, apples and pork coming in together, and it is generally traced to the long-standing Northern European practice of cutting rich fat with something sharp. Beeton's aside about sage and onion is a small piece of household diplomacy rather than technique: sage was the standard English seasoning for pork and goose, strongly enough flavoured that a cook was wise to let objectors leave it on the side of the plate.