Brawn or Head cheese Paleo

Has anyone had it before? What where your thoughts? I made some yesterday (well the day before yesterday and set it over night)

It was ok... I think the main issue I had was lack of seasoning... the ingredients were very paleo friendly and Frugal to boot. Plus the process left me with a lake of bone broth as well as a tasty lunch snack.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

1 pigs head 2-4 Pigs trotters 3-4 Onions (halved and peeled) 2-3 Carrots (cut into large chunks) 2 sticks Celery (washed and cut into large chunks) Bay Leaves Thyme Parsley (stalks should be bruised and leaves kept to the side) Peppercorns Nutmeg Garlic and Ginger Lemon (for juice) Salt and pepper

Method:

Ask your butcher to halve and quarter the head if possible (so that you can fit it into the pot). You need to clean the head by washing off any blood or bone dust from the saw. Burn any little hairs off (or remove with a knife). If the ears are still attached remove them (keep as you will be using them). Optional – Remove the brain (we did as I don’t really like the taste of brain)

If the head and/or trotters are pickled place them in water, bring to the boil, take off the heat and discard water. If not, skip this step

Place head quarters, ears, trotters, vegetables and spices (keep Garlic and ginger in large chunks do not add Parsley leaves yet) into the pot. Be generous with the salt and pepper. Cover with cold water and put onto the heat

Once the water has come to the boil, reduce heat and keep it simmering for 4-5 hours. During this time you want to skim off any scum that rises to the top of the broth

Lift the meat (it will be falling from the bones at this point) from the pot and set aside with the bones to cool

Remove any vegetable matter and discard (this fed our chickens – they loved it)

Sieve the left over broth first through a fine sieve and then through cheesecloth (keep the broth and discard any solids)

Place the pot (with the broth in it) back onto the heat and simmer until it reduces by about 1/3

Remove skin and fat from the meat (keep in a bowl) remove meat from bones (discard bones)

Roughly chop the meat and about 1/3 of the fat and skin. Place into a large mixing bowl.

Squeeze in the juice of 1-2 lemons (depending on taste) and add finely chopped parsley. Mix and season to taste

Place meat mixture into a terrine mould if you have one, we didn’t so we used a cake tin

Pour about 150ml (we used a bit more) of the broth to the mould and weigh it down

Place in refrigerator over night to set (the gelatine from the trotters will set quite firmly)

Serve with your favourite pickles or cheese. If you have difficulty removing it from the mould run a knife around the edge and dip the top in hot water.

I included this on a blog post on my page, so if you wanted to see images or want to read more about it here is the link. But the recipe speaks for itself and there is lots of recipes and videos about it online. http://ift.tt/1sKPBaU

If you wanted to include more offal there is this recipe here that I thought sounded like a good twist: http://ift.tt/1tYZm1F

And this guys video was helpful throughout the process: http://ift.tt/1tYZjTA

What are your thoughts? Anyone game to give it a go?

Submitted October 14, 2014 at 01:05PM by mek1485 http://ift.tt/1sKPBb3 Paleo