Head Cheese

Head cheese or Brawn is a cold cut originating in Europe . Head cheese is not a cheese, but meat pieces from the head of a pig or calf, in aspic, with onion, black pepper, allspice, bay leaf, salt and/or vinegar. It may also include meat from the feet, tongue and heart. It is usually eaten cold or at room temperature as a luncheon meat.

Ingredients:

- 1 pig head

- 4 pig trotters

Brine:

- 12 gallons of cold water

- 2 pounds salt

- 1 pound corn syrup or sugar

- 7 ounces TCM (Tinted Curing Mix)

Mirepoix:

- 4 carrots

- 4 stalks celery

- 4 leeks

- 4 onions

- 1 bunch parsley stems

- 4 bay leaves

- 2 tablespoon back pepper

- 1 tablespoon juniper berries

- 1 tablespoon all-spice berries

For final assembly:

- 2 pickles, peeled, seeds removed, and cut brunoise

- 2 pimentos, ribs removed, and cut brunoise.

 

Process:

Day 1.

Get your mise-en-place ready. (Pig parts and brine)

For the brine: dissolve all the ingredients in 3 gallons of the water, then combine with remaining water and chill to a minimum of 70F. Use ice if needed.

Cut the tongue out of the pig head. The easiest way of doing this is from the back of the head. Open the mouth and push the tongue as far back as possible, then making 1 incision on either side of the tongue with a boning knife, it should come out rather easily.

Next, you’re going to need to cut the head and trotters in half down the middle. This step isn’t strictly necessary, but is makes for a better stock, and hence aspic too. The reason being that you’ll expose more connective tissue & bone, and be able to remove the brain, which would otherwise cloud the stock. Also, it makes it much easier to pick off the meat later on.

The brain came out of that purple-ish cavity. (Yes- it is surprisingly small.)

FYI – your butcher will be able to send the head and trotters through a band-saw to cut the pig parts in half. I got semi-medieval with it and did the job with a saw and finished it off with a cleaver. If you do use a saw, its much easier to start the cut from the back of the head.

Brain recipe: poach the brain in a simmering standard court-bouillon for 4-7 minutes. Melt and brown a piece of butter in an oven-proof skillet. Put the poached brain presentation side down in the middle of the skillet and arrange mushrooms around the rest of the pan. Transfer skillet immediately to a 400F oven for 10 minutes. Upon pulling the pan from the oven, immediately deglaze it with lemon juice, chicken stock, capers, and a bit more butter. Serve immediately. The texture of the brain might be a little unfamiliar (imagine a gelatinous warm mousse), but the flavour is absolutely delicious.

Back to the head cheese. Submerge the split parts in the brine and refrigerate for 24-48 hours.

Once brined, discard the brine and let the pig parts sit in water for an hour to rinse.

I rinsed it again, to try and decrease any surface salinity from the brine. It did look cleaner.

Pull the tongue out, wrap it and refrigerate it.

Put the split head and trotters into a stockpot and cover with clean cold water. Bring up to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, so that you are seeing bubbles come to the surface at a rate of 1-3 small bubbles per second.

The head and feet will simmer for a total of 5 hours. Make sure to skim off the fat and impurities every 20 minutes or so.

Three hours in, add the tongue. It should cook for 2 hours.

In the final hour of cooking you want to add all the mirepoix. The mirepoix is only there to flavor the stock (not the head and trotters), which will become the aspic.

Once the five hours have elapsed, remove from heat, and strain off the liquid. Strain the liquid a few more times through cheesecloth. Then place it into a stockpot and boil it aggressively. At this point you’ll have about 10 gallon of stock, which needs to be reduced to about 1 quart.

Let the pig parts cool slightly.

Contrary to popular belief, head cheese is very lean. Pick through the head and trotters to remove all the meat. Try to avoid fatty parts left on the meat.

The amount of meat you get is actually fairly little. Avoid waste and be meticulous.

The small steel container above contains the hog eyes. These are pretty damn tasty on their own, or you could use them in the head cheese.

Next you want to peel the tongue and julienne it. The rest of the meat gets diced and mixed with the brunoised pickles and pimentos.

By this point your stock should be well reduced. Once it get to about 2 quarts, add a bottle of white wine, a splash of lemon juice, and a pinch of fine ground white pepper.  Reduce this by half.

Now you’re going to want to clarify the reduction. Strain it through your finest mesh sieve several times. Then whip up 6 egg whites to a slightly frothy stage. Temper some of the reduced liquid into the egg whites, then add the tempered whites into the rest of the reduction. Simmer for ten minutes. The egg whites should suck up all the impurities left in the reduction. Strain the egg & reduction mix through a coffee filter or, if you have one – a grease filter. This heavily reduced stock, contains a large amount of natural gelatine, and once refrigerated will set as a beautiful aspic.

Place the diced meat into your molds. Arrange the julienned tongue to form a log shape through the middle of the mold. Pour over some of the reduced liquid. Top with the remaining diced meat mix and reduction liquid.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The head cheese will keep for at least a week. When you’re ready to serve it up, gently heat the outside of the mold, and turn out the head – cheese. Slice it and enjoy.

 

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