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Leg of Pork a La Boisseau
476. A leg of pork for this purpose should be in salt about four days. Put it in boiling water, take it up and skin it, spit it and put it to the fire to roast, it will take two hours; half an hour before it is taken up, shake on plenty of bread-crumbs until it looks a nice brown colour, take it up and put under it a little sage and onion chopped very fine and boiled in good thick brown gravy. Apple sauce should be eaten with it.
A salted leg of pork, boiled briefly to loosen the skin, then finished on the spit under a coat of browned crumbs. The method translates to an oven with little loss, but the salting stage and the doneness need modern handling.
- The four days in saltThis is a light seasoning cure, not a preservation cure, and the joint is cooked straight afterwards. Keep it in the refrigerator at 40F or below throughout, in a brine of about 5 oz salt per quart of water, and discard the brine after use. A leg salted at room temperature for four days is not safe.
- Skinning after the boilThe brief plunge in boiling water is there to make the rind peel away cleanly, and may also draw off a little surface salt. A few minutes in barely boiling water should be enough; longer starts cooking the outer meat and it will be dry by the time the roast is finished.
- Spit to ovenFor a spit before an open fire, read a hot oven of 425F for the first 20 minutes to set the surface, then 350F for the remainder. If you have a rotisserie the original method can be followed, subject to the timing note below.
- Two hours is optimisticA whole bone-in leg runs 8 to 12 lb and will need well over two hours even after the brief plunge. Cook to an internal temperature of 145F at the thickest point, away from the bone, and rest 20 minutes. The original does not give a weight, and two hours would only suit a considerably smaller joint.
- The crumb coatingDry white breadcrumbs, pressed onto the fat while it is hot and tacky, in the last 30 minutes. In an oven they brown better if you dab the surface with a little melted butter or dripping first, and finish under the broiler for a minute or two if the colour is uneven.
- Sage and onion in brown gravyThis is a sauce, not a stuffing. Simmer one finely chopped onion until soft in about a pint of well-reduced brown gravy or good stock thickened with a little roux, then add a tablespoon of chopped fresh sage in the last few minutes so it does not turn bitter.
- Apple sauceCooking apples such as Bramley, stewed with a splash of water and no more sugar than needed to take the edge off. Serve it barely warm; the point is the acidity against the fat rind.
- YieldA leg of this size serves 10 to 14, and the cold remains slice well for two or three days.