Pig's Head.

Cut open the throat, and remove the teeth. Wash carefully the ears and mouth with tepid water, and let the head remain in cold water for half an hour, changing the water every ten minutes. Then put it in a large pot, with four large carrots, four onions, three bay-leaves, two branches of thyme, four juniper-berries, six cloves, a good deal of salt and cayenne-pepper. Cover the whole with cold water, and let it boil slowly for six hours; adding a little boiling water from time to time to keep up the requisite quantity. When the flesh is perfectly tender, take the head out of the pot and put it upon the table. Remove carefully the outer skin and lay it upon a deep dish, previously covered with a wet towel; if it breaks, put the pieces close to each other. Then pick all the flesh from the bones, and chop it very coarsely together with the brains, tongue, ears, etc.; season it highly with spices. Then take three truffles and cut them in thin slices, pound the peel and chop a quarter of a pound of fat bacon; put this mixture into a pan with salt and pepper, and let it simmer over a slow fire for twenty minutes; add it to the pig's head, and mix the whole thoroughly. Then place it upon the skin in the deep dish, cover it with the corners of the towel and place upon it another dish of the same shape, but rather smaller. Put a weight of a pound on the top, and let it remain till the morrow. Then add to the water in which the pig's head was boiled, a little burnt onion or burnt sugar, and boil it quickly over a sharp fire; when it is reduced to one half, beat the white of an egg with half

the shell and three drops of water, until it is very stiff; pour it into the boiling water; mix well; skim, and pass through a fine sieve into a tureen. Take it into the cellar, and on the morrow arrange this jelly around the pig's head.

A pig's head will keep for a fortnight in winter.

Riz au lait (Rice with milk).

Wash carefully in cold water a quarter of a pound of rice. Boil a quart and a half of milk, add to it the rice, previously drained, a table-spoonful of orangeflower water, and four lumps of sugar. Let the whole boil slowly for half an hour; remove the pan from the fire, and pour into it four table-spoonfuls of cream, mixed with two yolks of eggs. Mix thoroughly and

serve.

Sausages.

Choose the smallest intestines of a pig; clean them well, outwardly and inwardly. Before salting your pork, choose the lean parts about the neck, add a third of fat bacon, and chop the whole together; salt and pepper; then fill up the intestines with this preparation, and fasten them across with coarse thread, leaving a space of about two inches between the ties; each tie must be double, to allow the division of the sausages.

In France it is now the custom to take a small portion of sausage meat (about the size of an egg) and to wrap it up in a piece of caul, and then to flatten it: it is much easier than to clean intestines, and the sausages look better when fried.

INDEX.

X