BLACKFORD'S PORK CUTLETS

Boneless pork cutlets, about 4
Salt and pepper
1 or 2 eggs, beaten
Bread crumbs
Dried sage, crumbled
Finely minced onion
1/4 c. lard
14 c. flour

Cut them [the cutlets] from the leg and remove the skin; trim them and beat them and sprinkle them with pepper and salt. Prepare some beaten egg in a pan and on a flat dish a mixture of bread crumbs, minced onion & sage. Put some lard or drippings into a frying pan over the fire and when it boils put in the cutlets--having dipped every one, first in the egg and then in the seasoning. Fry them 20 or 30 minutes turning them often. After you have taken them out of the frying pan, skim the [fat off] the gravy, sprinkle on a little flour, give it one boil, and then pour it in the dish round the cutlets. Eat them with apple sauce.

From the Blackford Family Cookbook, L. M. Blackford, 1852.

Comment: This dish, although messy in the extreme and extravagant in its use of lard both for frying and then for gravy, is very, very good. Possibly the trickiest part involved is getting the onion in the breading to the proper consistency. "Mincing" as is called for here will leave the edges of the onion bits sticking out of the bread-crumb coating, leading to a tendency to burn. We suggest grating the onion, then squeezing it in a paper towel to remove the large amount of moisture generated. After drying them as best you can, scatter them over the breadcrumb mixture and blend thoroughly before dipping the egged cutlets. We found the suggested "20 to 30 minutes" cooking time to be excessive and wonder if perhaps 19th century pork was of a different consistency from that which is sold today.

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