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Crepinettes of Pig's Feet
Put the four feet of a pig in a saucepan of water, and boil them till they are quite tender; take them out, drain, and cut them in slices about one-half inch in thickness. Put some pig's caul in a basin of water to steep, take it out, drain and wipe it dry on a cloth. Prepare some forcemeat with knuckle of veal and fat bacon in equal quantities and mixed with a little spiced salt; spread a layer of this over the caul about one-fourth inch thick, three inches long, and one and one-half inches wide. Have ready some truffles, cooked in Madeira and cut in slices, arrange a few of them on some forcemeat and then a few pieces of the pigs' feet. Cover over the whole with another layer of the forcemeat, and then roll over the caul so as to form an oval, three inches in length and two inches in width. When the required number of crepinettes are made, dip them in warmed butter, then roll them in bread crumbs, place them on a gridiron over a clear fire, and broil slowly for fifteen minutes, or until they are a light brown color. Put them on a dish, and serve with a little perigueux sauce in a sauceboat.
A classic charcuterie preparation dressed up for a hotel dining room: boiled trotters bound in a veal forcemeat, wrapped in caul and grilled. Nothing here is difficult, but three ingredients — caul, spiced salt and trotters — need planning before you start.
- How long "quite tender" takesPig's feet need 3 to 4 hours at a bare simmer, not a rolling boil, before the meat pulls easily from the bone. Cool them in their liquid, then pick the meat and skin off and discard the bones; the instruction to "cut them in slices" assumes you have already dealt with the bone, which Oscar takes for granted.
- Caul fatCrépine, the lacy membrane from around a pig's stomach, is the wrapper that gives the dish its name. Order it from a butcher; it usually comes salted or frozen. Soak in cool water (a splash of vinegar helps) for 20 minutes, rinse, and pat dry as directed — it tears easily when cold and dry.
- Spiced saltSel epice in the French kitchen of this period was generally salt mixed with pepper and ground spices such as nutmeg, clove, bay, thyme and sometimes mace, though the proportions varied from kitchen to kitchen; something in the region of ten parts salt to one of mixed ground spice is a workable guide. Season the raw forcemeat at about 1.5 percent salt by weight of meat.
- The forcemeatEqual weights of lean veal knuckle and fat bacon, ground twice through a fine plate and worked cold, ideally over ice. If the mixture warms above about 55F the fat smears and the crépinettes break apart on the grill.
- Truffles and MadeiraBlack truffle simmered briefly in Madeira was standard garnish in Waldorf-era cooking and is now a serious expense. A few grams of fresh or preserved black truffle go a long way; failing that, brown a handful of finely chopped cremini in butter and finish with a spoonful of Madeira for the same aromatic effect, without pretending it is the same thing.
- Fire and doneness"A clear fire" means coals burnt down past flame, no smoke, moderate heat — roughly a medium grill, or a broiler set a good six inches from the element. Fifteen minutes browns the crumbs and just cooks a crépinette of this size through; check the centre reaches 160F, since the forcemeat goes on raw.
- Butter and crumbsWarmed butter means melted and barely warm, not hot. Dry fine breadcrumbs, pressed on firmly, will brown; fresh soft crumbs scorch before the interior is done.
- Sauce and yieldPerigueux is a Madeira-fortified demi-glace with chopped truffle. The recipe specifies no yield; at the size given, four feet should make roughly eight to ten crepinettes, enough for about four as a main course with the sauce passed separately.
Crépinettes belong to the French charcutier rather than the chef: small flat sausages without a casing, wrapped instead in caul, which bastes them as it melts and leaves a faint web of fat on the crust. The name comes straight from crépine, caul. Oscar Tschirky's book, published in 1896, reflects a New York hotel kitchen working in the Escoffier-era French idiom, where pig's feet — cheap, gelatinous and unfashionable in themselves — could be raised to the à la carte menu by pairing them with veal forcemeat, truffle and a Madeira sauce named for the Périgord. The same logic produced the better-known pieds de porc Sainte-Menehould, breaded and grilled trotters that were a Parisian late-supper staple through the nineteenth century. Oscar was the Waldorf's maître d'hôtel rather than its cook, and the book reads as a record of what the kitchen sent out under his eye.