Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/100

72 rubbing with butter or oil never cease, or the skin will not be crisp. The fire should be brisk, and a pig iron used, or the pig will be unequally cooked, for the middle will be burnt up, before the two ends are done. A good-sized one will take two hours. A pig should never go whole to table. Take the spit from the fire, and place it across a dish, then with a sharp knife cut the head off, cut down the back, and slip the spit out. Lay it back to back in your dish, and the ears, one at each end, which ought to be quite crisp. For sauce, clear beef, or veal gravy, with a squeeze of lemon, and, if approved, the brains and liver, or a little of the stuffing out of the pig, mixed in it, also a very little finely chopped sage. Apple sauce and currant sauce are not yet out of fashion for roast pig. Chili or eschalot vinegar is an improvement to pig-sauce. The easiest way is to bake it. (See Baking.)

This will hang three weeks with care, but must be watched. Wet it as little as possible; a damp cloth, only, should be used to cleanse it. Butter a sheet of kitchen paper, and tie it over the fat side of the joint, then lay over that a paste of about ½ an inch thick of flour and water; tie another sheet of paper over that, fasten all on firmly, and rub butter over the outside paper, that the fire may not catch it. Baste well, and keep up a strong clear fire. A haunch of from 20 to 25 lbs. weight, in a paste, will take from four to five hours, and not be overdone. Half an hour before it is ready take off the coverings, and put it nearer the fire to brown and froth. Baste with fresh butter, and lightly dredge it with flour. For sauce, currant jelly in heated port wine, in one boat, and clear drawn, unspiced gravy, in another. (See Gravies.) Raspberry vinegar may be used in making sauce for venison. Some epicures like eschalots or small onions, served with venison, hare, or any meat, eaten with sweet sauce.—The shoulder, breast, and neck, are all roasted, but the two latter are best in pies; and if lean, may be used in soup.—Serve French beans, and currant jelly.

This should, like a sucking-pig, be dressed soon after it