Stuffed Pigs Ears - Forced Hogs Ears

There were several ways 18th century cooks prepared hog's ears. Two recipes to stuff the ears are given below.


One, Hog's Ears Forced by Glasse [1747 and 1799] had the same ingredients as Moxon - just written differently - anchovy, sage, parsley, suet, bread crumbs, pepper, egg yolk, and a sauce of gravy, wine, mustard, butter, flour, onion and pepper. The other recipe, Plovers Capuchine was a very different stuffing of forcemeat and the bird, a plover, positioned in the ear so its beak peaked out.

During the fall, several festivals include pig butchering demonstrations, such as this past weekend at Landis Valley Museum, in Lancaster, PA.  I didn't get to leave the bake oven, so I am not sure if they cleaned the stomach for Hog Maw or saved other parts[ie. the ears] of the pig.  In January I posted about "Pudding" made from scraps, and now I'll include a couple of British recipes for stuffing the ears. 

Other pig's ear receipts were Fricassee, Ragouts/Ragoed/Ragoo, Sauce, Frying, Broiled, Marbree, and Pickle.

Plovers Capuchine Take four hog's ears, boil them tender, put a piece of force meat and your birds in the ears, with the head outwards, set them upright, the tips of the ears, falling backwards; wash them with eggs and crumbs then bake them gently; and serve them up with gravy.
Peckham, Ann. The Complete English Cook. Leeds: [1790?]

Glasse:
To make a Number of pretty little Dishes, fit for a Supper, or Side-dish, and little Corner-dishes, for a great Table; and the rest you have in the Chapter for Lent.

Hogs Ears forced.
TAKE four hogs ears, and half boil them, or take them soused; make a force-meat thus: take half a pound of beef-suet, as much crumbs of bread, an anchovy, some sage; boil and chop very fine a little parsley; mix all together with the yolk of an egg, a little pepper; slit your ears very carefully to make a place for your stuffing; fill them, flour them, and fry them in fresh butter till they are of a fine brown; then pour out all the fat clean, and put to them half a pint of gravy, a glass of white wine, three tea-spoonfuls of mustard, a piece of butter as big as a nutmeg rolled in flour, a little pepper, a small onion whole; cover them close, and let them stew softly for half an hour, shaking your pan now and then. When they are enough, lay them in your dish, and pour your sauce over them, but first take out the onion. This makes a very pretty dish; but if you would make a fine large dish, take the feet, and cut all the meat in small thin pieces, and stew with the ears. Season with salt to your palate.
Glasse, Hannah. The art of cookery made plain and easy
Rundell, Maria. A new system of domestic cookery. London: 1807 has the same recipe, adding finely minced veal to the forcemeat.

©2011 Patricia Bixler Reber
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