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Classic
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page 136
off the water and fry them. Sausages are nicely cooked by putting them in a
baking-pan and browning them in the oven, turning them once or twice. In this
way you avoid all smoke and disagreeable odor. A pound will cook brown in ten
minutes in a hot oven.
HEAD CHEESE.
Boil the forehead, ears and feet, and nice scraps trimmed from the hams of a
fresh pig, until the meat will almost drop from the bones. Then separate the
meat from the bones, put it in a large chopping-bowl, and season with pepper,
salt, sage and summer savory. Chop it rather coarsely; put it back into the same
kettle it was boiled in, with just enough of the liquor in which it was boiled
to prevent its burning; warm it through thoroughly, mixing it well together. Now
pour it into a strong muslin bag, press the bag between two flat surfaces, with
a heavy weight on top; when cold and solid it can be cut in slices. Good cold,
or warmed up in vinegar.
TO CURE HAMS AND BACON. (A Prize Recipe.)
For each hundred pounds of hams, make a pickle of ten pounds of salt, two pounds
of brown sugar, two ounces of saltpetre, and one ounce of red pepper, and from
four to four and a half gallons of water, or just enough to cover the hams,
after being packed in a water-tight vessel, or enough salt to make a brine to
float a fresh egg high enough, that is to say, out of water. First rub the hams
with common salt, and lay them into a tub. Take the above ingredients, put them
into a vessel over the fire, and heat it hot, stirring it frequently; remove all
the scum, allow it to boil ten minutes, let it cool and pour over the meat.
After laying in this brine five or six weeks, take out, drain and wipe, and
smoke from two to three weeks. Small pieces of bacon may remain in this pickle
two weeks, which would be sufficient.
TO SMOKE HAMS AND FISH AT HOME.
Take an old hogshead, stop up all the crevices, and fix a place to put a
cross-stick near the bottom, to hang the articles to be smoked on. Next, in the
side, cut a hole near the top, to introduce an iron pan filled with hickory wood
sawdust and small pieces of green wood. Having turned the hoshead upside down,
hang the articles upon the cross-stick, introduce the iron pan in the opening,
and place a piece of red-hot iron in the pan, cover it with sawdust, and all
will be complete. Let a large ham remain ten days, and keep up a good smoke. The
best way for keeping hams is to sew them in coarse cloths, whitewashed on the
outside.
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