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Fried Salt Pork
Take thin slices of pickled pork; fry lightly. Then mix a batter of egg and barley flour and milk and place the pork in this till it has become completely covered and fry to a light brown.
A two-stage fry: the pork is rendered first, then jacketed in batter and browned. The original assumes you know how salt your pork is and how thick a batter should be, so both need judgement.
- Pickled pork is salt porkIn period English and American usage "pickled pork" means pork cured in brine, not vinegar-pickled. Modern salt pork or unsmoked streaky bacon stands in; taste a scrap after the first fry and soak the slices in cold water for an hour or two, changing the water, if the cure is aggressive.
- Slice thicknessThe original says only "thin"; something around 1/8 inch works. Thicker slices will not render enough fat in the first fry and the batter coat will slide off a wet, flabby surface.
- The first fry is the hingeFry lightly means rendering some fat and firming the surface, not browning. If the pork is cooked through at this stage it will be leathery by the time the batter is golden.
- Batter proportionsNone are given. A workable ratio is 1 egg, 1/2 cup barley flour and about 1/2 cup milk, beaten to the thickness of heavy cream so it clings without sheeting off. Add no salt; the pork supplies it.
- Barley flourLow in gluten, so the coating fries crisp and short rather than chewy, with a faintly sweet, nutty taste. Available from health-food shops and mills; all-purpose flour works but gives a tougher, breadier jacket.
- Fat and heatFry in the rendered pork fat left in the pan, topped up if needed, at a steady medium-high — around 350F. Too cool and the barley batter soaks fat; too hot and it colours before the pork heats through.
- Dry the pork before dippingBlot the slices on paper after the first fry. Batter will not adhere to a surface slick with hot fat.
- YieldNo quantity is given. Half a pound of salt pork, thinly sliced, will feed two as a breakfast or supper dish. Serve immediately with something sharp — mustard, apple sauce, or vinegared greens — to cut the salt and fat.
Salt pork was the ballast of the nineteenth-century larder: cheap, keeping for months in brine, and available in cottage and ship's galley alike long after fresh meat had gone. Frying it in batter is a thrift technique — the coating stretches a few slices into a full plate and catches the rendered fat that would otherwise be lost. The choice of barley flour may point to a British or northern household where barley was the everyday grain and wheat flour the more expensive one; barleymeal batters and puddings persisted in Scotland and the north of England into the twentieth century.