Give

flour, a spoonful of cream, and a little salt and pepper. it a boil up, pour it over a few sippets of bread, and put the feet on the mince.

TO FORCE HOG'S EARS.

196.-Parboil 2 pair of ears, or take some that have been soused; make a forcemeat of an anchovy, a little finely-minced veal, some sage, parsley, lb. of suet chopped, bread-crumbs, pepper, and only a little salt. Mix all these with the yolks of 2 eggs, raise the skin of the upper side of the ears, and stuff them with the above. Fry the ears in fresh butter, of a fine colour; then pour away the fat, and drain them; make ready pint of rich gravy, with a glass of fine sherry, 3 teaspoonfuls of made mustard, a little bit of flour and butter, a small onion whole, and a little pepper or cayenne. Put these, with the ears, into a stewpan, and cover it close; stew it gently for

an hour, shaking the pan often. When done enough, take out the onion, place the ears carefully in a dish, and pour the sauce over them. If a larger dish be wanted, the meat from 2 feet may be taken from the bones, and added to the above.

PIGS FEET AND EARS.

197.-Soused.-Clean carefully and soak them some hours, then boil them tender; having prepared a pickle of some of the liquor that they were boiled in, and a quarter part of vinegar and salt, boiled, pour it over them cold. When they are to be dressed, dry them, cut the feet in two, slice the ears, and fry them. Serve with butter, mustard, and vinegar, in a boat. They may be dipped in batter, or only floured.

Fricasseed.-Take feet and ears that have been boiled, but not kept in pickle wherein was vinegar; boil them tender in milk, cut the feet into neat bits, and the ears into strips of inch wide: wipe them, and simmer in veal broth, with a bit of onion, mace, and lemon-peel. Before you serve, add a little cream, flour, and butter.

Jelly of Pigs' Feet and Ears.-Clean and prepare, then boil them in a very small quantity of water till every bone can be taken out; throw in half a handful of chopped sage, the same of parsley, and a seasoning of pepper, salt, and mace in fine powder; simmer till the herbs are scalded, then pour the whole into a melon-form. Serve when cold.

PORK GRISKIN

198.-Is usually very hard: the best way to prevent this is to put it into as much cold water as will cover it, and let it boil up; then instantly take it off, and put it into a Dutch oven; a very few minutes will do it. Remember to rub butter over it, and then flour it, before you put it to the fire. Lay it in a dish on melted butter and mustard. It should be seasoned with pepper and salt before roasting.

SPARERIB

199. Should be basted with a very little butter and a little flour, and then sprinkled with dried sage crumbled.

BELLY OF PORK.

200.-Lovers of pork are very fond of having the belly part of a porker, either fresh or salted, strewed thickly over the inside with sage, sweet herbs, and minced eschalots; then rolled, tied tightly together, and either baked or roasted.

SHOULDERS AND BREASTS OF PORK.

201.-Put them into pickle, or salt the shoulder as a ham; cut accordingly. When very nice, they may be roasted.

SPRING, OR FOREHAND OF PORK.

202.-Cut out the bone; sprinkle salt, pepper, and sage dried, over the inside; but first warm a little butter to baste it, and then flour it; roll the pork tight, and tie it; then roast by a hanging jack. About 2 hours will do it.

CHINE OF PORK.

203.-The chine is more usually salted, and served as an accompaniment to roast turkey. Salt the chine for 3 days, roast it, and serve it up with sauce made thus:-Fry in oil or butter 2 or 3 sliced onions until they take colour; then pour off the oil, and add some gravy-sauce, chopped mushrooms, and 2 tablespoonfuls of vinegar, with 1 teaspoonful of made mustard. Give the whole a boil, and serve it up in the dish.

BLADE-BONE OF PORK

204.-Is taken from the bacon-hog: the less meat left on it, in moderation, the better. It is to be broiled; and when just

done, pepper and salt it. Put to it a piece of butter and a teaspoonful of mustard; and serve it quickly. This is a Somersetshire dish.

PIG'S HARSLET.

205.-Wash and dry some liver, sweetbreads, and fat and lean bits of pork, beating the latter with a rolling-pin to make it tender; season with pepper, salt, sage, and a little onion shred fine; when mixed, put all into a caul, and fasten it up tight with a needle and thread. Roast it on a hanging-jack, or by a string.

Or :-Serve in slices, with parsley for a fry; with a sauce of port wine and water, and mustard, just boiled up, and put into the dish.

HOG'S LARD

206.-Should be carefully melted in a jar put into a kettle of water and boiled: run it into bladders that have been extremely well cleaned. The smaller they are the better the lard keeps, as, after the air reaches it, it becomes rank. Put in a sprig of rosemary when melting.

This being a most useful article for frying fish, it should be prepared with care. Mixed with butter, it makes fine crust for tarts.

HAMS.

207.-Skimmed milk, or milk and water, will be found preferable to plain water for soaking hams; and they may also be boiled in milk and water.

Where vegetables are plentiful, it is desirable to boil ham with 3 heads of celery, a couple of turnips, half a dozen small onions, and a large bunch of sweet marjoram, thyme, &c., put in after the pot has been skimmed. "These will extract the salt and soften the meat. A piece of coarse fresh beef, or any kind of meat, in addition, will materially improve the ham, as, in this manner of boiling it, the juices of the meat and vegetables insinuate themselves between the fibres of the ham, after having dislodged the salt, by which means the meat is enriched and rendered tender. At first sight this will appear an extravagant way of boiling a ham, but it should be considered that the broth will serve the purposes of the family." If the

a

'Medical Commentary on Modern Cookery,' by A. Hunter, M.D. F.R.S. L. and E.

meat and vegetables are not approved, 2 lbs. of fresh beefdripping will answer nearly as well.

To boil. If long hung, soak it for 24 hours in luke-warm water, changing it frequently. Wash and brush it well; trim off any rusty parts; put it into a boiler of water, and let it simmer from 34 hours to 5 hours, according to its size. It is best to allow time enough, as it is easy to take up the ham when done, and keep it hot over boiling water, covered closely. Take off the skin as whole as you can, as it keeps the cold ham moist when skewered on again after dinner.

There can be no doubt that the foregoing is an excellent mode of boiling a ham, but many people prefer to have it baked, in which case send it to the oven in a deep pan with lb. of suet over it to baste it occasionally; or skin it, cover it with a crust of coarse paste, and, when taken from the bakehouse, strip off the crust, rub it with yolk of egg, on which put finely powdered crumbs of bread strewed with a dredging-box, in the same manner as when the ham is boiled.

In Spain and Portugal, where the hams are generally fine, the method of dressing them is to put the ham in cold water with a large handful of brown sugar, to which some persons add a quantity of the common country wine, and let it simmer on the fire until parboiled, keeping the pot well skimmed; when taken out, the skin is stripped off, and the ham covered with brown sugar to the thickness of an inch, after which it is sent to the oven and baked until thoroughly done.

A ham of 15 lbs. should be allowed nearly 2 hours before the water begins to boil, and as much more for simmering until half done; then from 3 to 4 hours' baking, according to the heat of the oven, which however should never be allowed to be too hot.

When cold, twist some neatly fringed letter-paper round the shank-bone.

To roast.-Take a very fine ham (a Westphalia, if you can procure it), soak it in luke-warm water for a day or two, changing the water frequently. The day before you intend to cook it, take the ham out of the water, and, having removed the skin, trim it nicely, and pour over it a bottle of an inferior white wine; let it steep till next morning, frequently during the day washing the wine over it; put it in a cradle-spit in time to allow at least 6 hours for slowly roasting

it; baste continually with hot water. When it is done, dredge it all over with fine bread-raspings, shaken on through the top of the dredging-box, and set it before the fire to brown.

For Gravy. Take the wine in which the ham was steeped, and add to it the essence or juice which flowed from the meat when taken from the spit; squeeze in the juice of 2 lemons, put it into a saucepan, and boil and skim it; send it to table in a boat. Cover the shank of the ham (which should have been sawed short) with bunches of double parsley, and ornament it with any garnish you may think proper.

To boil Mutton Ham.-Put it on the fire in cold water, let it warm quickly, and allow it to boil only 20 minutes; then leave it in the pan of water till cold. This plan renders it moist, and answers when it is to be eaten cold.