Of all the recipes that I made until now, if there was one that I really wish my dad could’ve tasted, this would be the one.
He was such a huge fan of head cheese! You should’ve seen the look on his face when my mom returned from the grocery store and he would retrieve a jar of the stuff from the bags as he helped unpack. He looked like someone had just told him that he’d won the lottery or something!
I’m absolutely positive that he would’ve said (and meant) that this Homemade Head Cheese was the best he’d ever tasted.
To be honest, I’d been wanting to make this for a very long time now, but kept putting it off because I was very afraid to face the actual pig’s head. It had been sitting in my freezer since I’d purchased my side of pasture raised pork. The thing is, I had no idea of what to expect when I’d cut open this neatly wrapped package.
Pfft. Had I known! See those beautiful pieces of meat up there? That’s my pig’s head, along with a couple of tongues. Looks like the butcher had taken the liberty of cleaning that head for me: he removed the eyes, brains, ears, facial features and all the stuff that I didn’t really care to see. Heck, he even went ahead and cut it into manageable pieces. In fact, one could barely tell that this was even a head to begin with.
Boy was I grateful for that. And you know what? I’m sure that if you ever decided to purchase a hog head and asked your butcher nicely, he would gladly clean it up for you like that.
Oh, he might ask for a small monetary compensation, perhaps, but I’m sure it would be very minimal and totally worth it. After all, pork head isn’t all that expensive to start with, and the meat that it conceals is so freakishly tender and delicious! Especially after it’s been slow cooked like this.
So what say you? Will you dare try it? At least, take a peek at the entire process, then you can decide for yourself. continue reading
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