Important: Safety Warning
This recipe calls for animal brains or related nervous-system tissue. Cattle brain and spinal tissue can transmit bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, which is fatal and has no treatment.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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To Roast Pork
468. Pork, before being roasted, when the joint has the skin on, must be scored with a knife. This is sometimes done by the butcher, but if not, the cook must be careful not to neglect it, as it is quite impossible to cut slices through the skin after it is roasted. They should always be made through the skin only, and in such directions and at such distances apart as will correspond with the slices in carving the joint. Pork requires to be put at a distance from a brisk and strong fire, and should be thoroughly done, but not scorched. It must be well basted, and when there is no skin, as in what is called "pig-meat," that is, the meat from large bacon-hogs, a strong solution of salt in water should be used at first to baste it. When there is outside skin, a little dripping or lard must be put in the pan to begin with. Leg of pork is generally stuffed with sage and onions, boiled and chopped fine, and if these are mixed with an equal quantity of boiled potatoes the flavour will be improved, with less danger of unpleasant reminiscences. The stuffing is forced into a slit cut in the large end, near the bone. Gravy is made from the dripping-pan (see par. 75); it is usual to serve with apple sauce (which see). The time required is for the leg fully half an hour more than the usual quarter of an hour per pound; for other joints that allowance will suffice. SUCKING-PIG. 469. Sucking-pig may be either roasted or baked. If roasted, it must be put down at a distance from the fire, and should be basted with oil, dripping, or lard. The pig is always stuffed with some kind of stuffing containing sage. A good Receipt for which is to take a quarter of a pound of crumbs of bread, one onion, a small handful of sage, a raw egg, and a small piece of butter; these should be well mixed together with a little pepper and salt. Then fill the belly of the pig, and sew up with a common needle and thread. Another plan is to cut a round of bread thick, as for toast, brown it very lightly, and butter it, then soak it in some water in which a handful of sage and an onion have been boiled, cut it into long pieces, and lay it in the belly, with alternate layers of the boiled sage leaves, but no onion, after which it is to be closed as above. A pig about a month old will take from an hour and three quarters to two hours; and if two weeks older, another hour. After taking it from the spit cut the head off, and leave the body in the dripping-pan. Then divide the head longitudinally, and take out the brains for sauce; after which, return it to the dripping-pan. When the sauce is made, divide the body down the middle, and lay the two halves back to back, with half the head at each end. The sauce is made by chopping the brains up very finely with boiled sage, and mixing with some good plain stock, or the gravy made from the dripping-pan. Some made gravy should also be served with it.
Two related sets of directions: a plain roast leg or loin of pork with sage-and-onion stuffing, and a whole sucking-pig with brain sauce. Both assume a spit turning before an open fire, which changes almost every practical instruction.
- Score the skin before roasting, not afterThis is the hinge of the whole method. Cut through the rind only, at the spacing you intend to carve, before the joint goes near heat. Once the crackling has set, a knife will not get through it cleanly.
- From spit to oven"A distance from a brisk and strong fire" translates to a roasting tin in the middle of the oven at about 350F. The book gives no temperatures, and the higher opening heat suggested here is a modern addition rather than a conversion of anything in the text; the recipe in fact keeps the meat well away from the fire and warns against scorching. Sucking-pig, which scorches easily, wants a gentler heat still.
- The timing is long by modern practiceA quarter of an hour per pound plus half an hour extra for a leg gives about two hours for a 6 lb joint. Cook to internal temperature instead: 145F/63C at the thickest point, rested, for loin and leg. The old rule belongs to a period when pork was cooked grey throughout.
- Salt-water bastingThe brine baste is only for skinless "pig-meat" from bacon hogs, to season and dry the surface. On a rind-on joint use the dripping or lard as directed, and stop basting the skin in the last half hour so it can crisp.
- The stuffingSage and onion boiled then chopped, with an equal quantity of boiled potato as the book directs; no amount is given. The "unpleasant reminiscences" the author mentions are presumably the after-effects of the onion, which the potato dilutes. Slit the meat at the thick end near the bone and pack it in; a whole leg will not cook evenly if the pocket is overfilled.
- Sucking-pig is a special orderA month-old pig, perhaps 10-20 lb, must be booked from a butcher and will not fit most domestic ovens; the 1 3/4 to 2 hour timing assumes turning at the fire and frequent basting. Take it to 145F/63C in the loin and check the shoulder separately.
- The brain saucePig brain is sold in some markets but is offal that spoils fast. The dish loses nothing if you make the sauce with chopped boiled sage, the pan gravy and a little stock, and leave the brains out. BSE, mentioned in warnings on this passage, is a disease of cattle rather than pigs, but there is no reason to seek out the ingredient.
- Cross-reference and serving"Par. 75" is the book's own dripping-pan gravy; deglaze the tin with stock, skim the fat, and reduce. Apple sauce is named for the pork joint; the sucking-pig is served with the brain sauce and some made gravy, split and laid back to back with half the head at each end.