• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2185 0

may be adhering to it, wipe it dry, and let it brown on both sides in a heavy braising pan in which the oil or lard has been heated. Take it out of the pan. Bring the marinade, with all its vegetables, to the boil in a separate saucepan. Stir the flour into the fat in the pan; gradually add the marinade through a strainer; stir until it is smooth; add sufficient of the prepared stock to make the sauce about the consistency of a thin béchamel. Put back the meat. Cover the pan. Transfer to a low oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F., and cook for 2 to 3 hours, by which time the pork should be quite tender and coming away from the bone. Transfer it to a hot serving dish. Leave the sauce to settle for a few minutes, then pour off as much of the excess fat as possible. Pour the rest of the sauce into a small saucepan, let it come to the boil and reduce a little. Taste for seasoning. Serve it separately in a sauce-boat.

The accompanying vegetable can be a very creamy purée of chestnuts, lentils, or celeriac and potatoes, into which is incorporated a little of the sauce from the meat. Red-currant jelly can also be served with it. There should be enough for about ten people, but the dish is also excellent cold.

At one time such dishes as this were often made in imitation of wild boar, while haunches of mutton would be treated in similar ways to imitate venison. Probably the method was evolved as much to preserve meat when there were no refrigerators as to gratify a desire for game out of season.

ENCHAUD DE PORC À LA PÉRIGOURDINE

LOIN OF PORK STUFFED WITH TRUFFLES

For those who like pork, this is one of the loveliest dishes in the whole repertoire of south-western French cookery. It cannot very often be made in England in its full beauty because the pork should be studded with black truffles. Occasionally, though, when one feels like a little extra extravagance, even quite a small tin of truffles is sufficient to give the right flavour to the meat. It is one of the dishes which I like to make at Christmas as an alternative to the turkey, or to serve as a cold dish for a large lunch party. It is shown in the drawing on page 360.

Have a fine piece, about 4 lb. or more, of loin of pork, boned and with the rind removed. Lay the meat on a board, salt and pepper it, cut 2 or 3 truffles into thick little pieces and lay them at intervals along the meat. Add a few little spikes of garlic and some salt and pepper as well. Roll the meat up and tie it round with string so that it is the shape of a long, narrow bolster. Put in a baking dish with the bones, the rind cut into strips and all the trimmings. Let it cook about 30 minutes in a low oven, Gas No. 3, 330 deg. F. When the meat has turned golden, pour in about a pint of clear hot meat stock or pint of water and pint of white wine, plus the liquid from the tin of truffles. Now cover the dish and leave the meat to cook another 2 to 2 hours.

Pour off the sauce and remove the fat when it has set. Chop the jelly which remains beneath the fat and arrange it round the cold pork in the serving dish. Enough for about ten people.

The beautifully flavoured fat from this pork dish can be spread on slices of toasted French bread and makes a treat for the children at tea-time, as used to be our own toast and beef dripping.

Without the truffles, this pork dish is sometimes cooked at the time of the grape harvest, and La Mazille, author of La Bonne Cuisine en Périgord, says that slices of bread spread with the dripping and a piece of the cold pork topped with a pickled gherkin are distributed to the harvesters for their collation.

Remember, also, that this beautifully flavoured pork dripping is a wonderful fat in which to fry bread or little whole potatoes.

ROULADE DE PORC À LA GELÉE

ROLLED LEG OF PORK IN JELLY

This is really a more everyday version of the enchaud de porc described above.

Have a half leg of pork weighing about 5 lb. boned, the rind removed, and tied into a fat sausage shape.

Make two rows of incisions along the meat and into these press chopped fresh herbs and, if you