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Stuffing for Suckling Pig
Put two tablespoonfuls of finely-chopped onion into a saucepan with one teaspoonful of oil. Toss them over the fire for five or six minutes, add eight ounces of rice boiled in stock, an equal quantity of sausage-meat, four or five ounces of butter, a small quantity of minced-parsley, and pepper and salt to taste. Turn the mixture into a basin and add three more eggs to make the whole into a stiff paste. It is then ready for use.
A rice-and-sausage forcemeat of the classic French kind, written for a whole roast suckling pig. It works equally well in a boned pork loin, a large chicken or as a baked side dish.
- "Three more eggs"No eggs appear earlier in the recipe as printed, so "more" looks like a leftover from a fuller text or a printing slip. Three whole eggs suits this volume of rice and sausage; add them one at a time and stop when the mixture holds a shape on the spoon.
- WeightsThe wording leaves it unclear whether the eight ounces is weighed before or after boiling. Read as cooked rice, eight ounces is roughly 1 1/2 cups, from about 1/2 cup raw. The equal quantity of sausage-meat is 8 oz, or half a pound of bulk breakfast or Italian sausage with the casings removed.
- The butterFour to five ounces is 8 to 10 tablespoons, which is generous even by Waldorf standards and assumes the stuffing will absorb it inside a lean cavity. In a modern pork roast or chicken, 4 tablespoons is plenty; more and it will pool.
- Rice boiled in stockCook the rice deliberately soft, not al dente, and let it cool before mixing. Firm rice will not bind with the eggs and the stuffing will crumble when carved.
- Temperature that mattersThe stuffing contains raw pork and raw egg, so the center of the packed cavity must reach 165F, not merely the meat around it. A dense rice forcemeat heats slowly; check with a probe at the thickest point rather than trusting the roast's own timing.
- Do not pack tightFill loosely and leave room at the ends. The eggs set and the rice swells, and a solidly packed cavity is the usual reason the middle stays underdone.
- YieldAbout 4 cups. That will fill two chickens or a boned loin serving eight; a whole suckling pig will need considerably more. Any surplus bakes on its own at 350F for 35 to 40 minutes, covered, until set.
Roast suckling pig was still a standing item for large private dinners when Oscar Tschirky was managing the Waldorf's dining rooms at the turn of the century, and this stuffing follows a familiar professional pattern: a base of chopped onion sweated in fat, a starch, a forcemeat of pork, and eggs to bind, seasoned only with parsley, pepper and salt. The rice here stays loose and absorbs the fat rendering inward from the skin instead of turning to paste. The book's clipped, imperative phrasing and the appearance of the stray "three more eggs" show what Oscar's Cook Book largely is - a working kitchen's notes compressed for print, addressed to cooks who already knew what a forcemeat should feel like in the hand.