Head Cheese, Please!

The Satiated Blonde

May 28, 20222 min read

Updated: Feb 16, 2024

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I asked my local farmer if I could get a pig's head...and they delivered! I do like to actually make traditional foods, not just consume them or talk about it, haha. For example, pâté (my first post) stock, and gravy! So there I was with a pig's head, wondering what next?! You'd think I would have had a plan before I placed my order (lol), but I was inspired by Sally Norton (the leading authority on oxalates) to get one and cook it up! I have a lot of pics, but you will probably be glad I saved most of the close ups for the video! Anyways, I decided to make headcheese! It's basically a meat jello.

I found the biggest pot I could find, placed the head in, covered it with water, brought it to a boil, and simmered it for about 24 hours. Next, I strained out the stock and then reduced the strained liquid about a quarter (I reserved this liquid for later). Then I seasoned it with my two favorites: fermented white pepper & salt (Affiliate code: S B10).

I pulled off the meat from all around the head (the cheeks are especially meat-y)! Next, I chopped up all that meat and put it in a large casserole dish.

After the liquid had reduced (and cooled a bit --it's a lot of liquid, even reduced, so this part took awhile), I covered the chopped meat with the liquid. There was a lot of extra liquid. I froze this. Ice cubes work well, too!

I carefully put the meat with the liquid on top in the fridge to gel. Actually, I had my hubby do this part because I would have spilled it everywhere, haha!

Here's what it looks like after gelling in the fridge for a few hours. It is solid! Ta daa! This is headcheese!

For dinner, I heated up the headcheese in a pot (Affiliate code: SATIATEDBLONDE) and put it atop some toasted sourdough bread. It was such a deep, delicious flavor!