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

Pick over carefully a quart of beans and let them soak over night; in the morning wash and drain in another water, put on to boil in cold water with half a teaspoon of soda; boil about thirty minutes (when done, the skin of a bean will crack if taken out and blown upon), drain, and put in an earthen pot first a slice of pork and then the beans, with two or three tablespoons of molasses. When the beans are in the pot, put in the centre half or threefourths of a pound of well-washed salt pork with the rind scored in slices or squares, and uppermost; season with pepper and salt if needed; cover all over with hot water, and bake six hours or longer in a moderate oven, adding hot water as needed ; they cannot be baked too long. Keep covered so that they will not burn on the top, but remove cover an hour or two before serving, to brown the top and crisp the pork. PORK SAUSAGES. Take such a proportion of fat and lean pork as you like; chop it quite fine, and for every ten pounds of meat take four ounces of fine salt, and one of fine pepper; dried sage, or lemon thyme, finely powdered, may be added if liked; a teaspoonful of sage, and the same of ground allspice and cloves, to each ten pounds of meat Mix the seasoning through the meat; pack it down in stone pots or put in M Mothkb'b Cook Book. muslin bags. Or fill the hog's or ox's gats, having first made them perfectly clean, thus: empty them, cut them in lengths, and lay them three or four days in salt and water, or weak lime water; turn them inside out once or twice, scrape them; then rinse them, and fill with the meat. If yon do not use the skins or gate, make the sausage meat up to the size and shape of sausages, dip them in beaten egg, and then into wheat flour, or rolled crackers, or simply into wheat floor, and fry in hot lard. Tarn them, that every side may be a fine color. Serve hot, with boiled potatoes or hominy; either taken from the gravy, or after they are fried, pour a little boiling water into the gravy in the pan, and pour it over them; or first dredge in a teaspoonful of wheat flour, stir it until it is smooth and brown; then add a little boiling water, let it boil up once, then put it in the dish with the sausages. Chopped onion and green parsley may be added to the sausage meat, when making ready to fry. Or sausage meat may be tied in a muslin bag, and boiled, and served with vegetables; or let it become cold, and cut in slices. PORK CHOPS, STEAKS AND CUTLETS. Fry or stew pork chops, after taking off the rind or skin, the same as for veaL Cutlets and steaks are also fried, broiled, or stewed, the same as veaL ROAST PIG. Thoroughly clean the pig, then rinse it in cold water, wipe it dry; then rub the inside with a mixture of salt and pepper, and if liked, a little pounded and sifted sage; make a stuffing thus: "cut some wheat bread in slices half an inch thick, spread butter on to half its thickness, sprinkled with Mother's Coos Boos. 85 pepper and salt, and if liked, a little pounded sage and minced onion; pour enough hot water over the bread to make it moist or soft, then fill the bod; with it and sew it together, or tie a cord around it to keep the dressing in, then spit it; pat a pint of water in the dripping-pan, put into it a tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper, let the fire be hotter at each end than in the middle, put the pig down at a little distance from the fire, baste it as it begins to roast, and gradually draw it nearer; continue to baste occasionally; turn it that it may be evenly cooked; when the eyes drop out it is done; or a better rule is to judge by the weight, fifteen minutes for each pound of meat, if the fire is right.