Mother's Cook Book: Containing Recipes for Every Day in the Week, Including ..

Clean and wash the grouse. Lard the breast and legs. Pat a small skewer into the legs and through the tail. Tie firmly with twine. Dredge with salt, and rub the breast with soft batter; then dredge thickly with flour. Pat into a quick oven. If to be very rare, cook twenty minutes; if wished better done, thirty minutes. The former time, as a general thing, suits gentlemen better, but thirty minntes is preferred by ladies. If the birds are cooked in a tin kitchen, it should be for thirty or thirty-five minutes. When done, place on a hot dish, on which has been spread breadsauce. Sprinkle fried crumbs over both grouse and sauce. Garnish with parsley. The grouse may, instead, be served on a hot dish, with the parsley garnish, and the sauce and crumbs served in separate dishes. The first method is the better, however, as yon get in the sauce all the gravy that comes from the birds. PORK, HAMS, ETC. To Choose Pork. — If the rind of pork is tough and thick, and cannot easily be impressed with the finger, it is old. If fresh, the flesh will look cool and smooth; when moist or clammy it is stale. The knuckle is the first to become tainted. Pork is often what is called measly, and is then almost poisonous; measly pork may easily be detected, the fat being full of small kernels. Swill or still-fed pork is not fit for curing; either dairy or corn-fed is good. Fresh pork is in season from October to April. In catting np a large hog, it is first cut in two down the back and belly. The chine or back-bone should be cut out from each side the whole length, and im either boiled or 83 Mother's Cook Book. roasted. The chine is considered the prime part. The sides of the hog are made into bacon, and the inside or ribs is cut with very little meat; this is the spare-rib. CURING HAMS. Hang up the hams a week or ten days, the longer the tenderer and better, if kept perfectly sweet; mix for each good-sized ham, one teacup of salt, one tablespoon of molasses, one ounce of saltpetre; lay the hams in a clean dry tab; heat the mixture and rub well into the hams, especially around the bones and recesses; repeat the process once or twice, or until all the mixture is used; then let the hams lie two or three days, when they must be put for three weeks in brine strong enough to bear an egg; then soak eight hours in cold water; hang up to dry in the kitchen or other more convenient place for a week or more; smoke from three to five days, being careful not to heat the hams, Corn-cobs and apple-tree wood are good for smoking. The juices are better retained if smoked with the hock down. Tie up carefully in bags for the summer. TO ROAST A LEG OF PORK. Take a sharp knife and score the skin across in narrow strips (you may cross it again so as to form diamonds) and rub in some powdered sage. Raise the skin at the knuckle and put in a stuffing of minced onion and sage, breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. Fasten it down with a buttered string, or with skewers. You may make deep incisions in the meat of the large end of the leg, and stuff them also, pressing in the filling very hard. Rub a little sweet oil all over the skin with a brush or a goose feather, to make it crisp and of a handsome brown. A leg of pork will require from three to four hoars to roast Motheb's Cook Book. S3 Moisten it all the time by brushing it with sweet oil, or with fresh batter tied in a rag. To baste it with its own drippings will make the skin tough and hard. Skim the fat carefully from the gravy, which should be thickened with a little flour. A roast leg of pork should always be accompanied by apple sauce, and by mashed potatoes and mashed turnips, PORK AND BEANS.