Finally we come to the end of the pigs head project, and to be perfectly honest I’ll be happy to start writing about new things again. But that said, I have thoroughly enjoyed tackling a piece of meat that was new to me and being able to create three very different meals out of it. It’s certainly inspired me to try out more of the undervalued cuts; they are so cheap to buy and can be made into really lovely dishes with a bit of thought and time. I was amazed at how far the head went, and once you stopped thinking about the anatomical side of things you were left with a lot of really decent meat. Although these cuts are not commonly found in the supermarket, it’s well worth getting to know your local independent butcher who can advise you on these cuts and can usually order them for you within a day or two.
Even this week there has been loads of coverage on the news about how supermarkets are developing new schemes to deliver food not to people’s houses, but to convenient points such as tube stations to be collected. I found this quite depressing. This is another measure that is going to damage our high streets. Luckily where I live in Stoke Newington we have a high street that is 90% small independent businesses, and this diversity is such a refreshing change to the corporation dominance of other parts of town. Don’t get me wrong, of course I shop at supermarkets, but when it comes to food, the quality shines through in these small shops. I always find pork chops the most striking example of this, where the scrawny ones sold at the supermarkets are dwarfed by the cave-man style specimens from a butcher. And don’t get me started about the way that some of the big brands treat the farmers. It’s more than embarrassing. I digress, but my point is that without these specialist butchers, fishmongers, delicatessens, finding those great quality or less popular ingredients would be near impossible.
With the braised cheek and doughnut dishes the pork was definitely the star of the show, whereas in this case it’s more a balance of three good ingredients that combine really well together. Squid and chorizo are classic partners and one I love, and this is kind of my attempt to replicate that. Although my method of making these sausages is totally makeshift and involves cooking the meat in the spices beforehand, I was amazed that it worked. I found that another fairly gruesome-yet-handy piece of pork, caul fat, acted perfectly as the casing and formed a crisp shell around the filling when fried. Aside from the initial slow roasting of the pork that you can do a day or two in advance, this is a really quick meal to knock together.
Purple sprouting broccoli is bang in season and gives the finished dish another texture and an earthy, irony taste. Like the squid it also loves strong spicy flavours and marries really well with the paprika in the sausages. But don’t cook it too much; it just needs steaming or boiling for a couple of minutes.
I also wanted to include the squid ink in this recipe. It’s commonly used in risottos and pasta dishes but tends to dominate everything else and make it all look a bit, well, inky. I wanted things to be a bit more subtle here, so have used it in the vinegar and lemon reduction. Although very sharp, it cuts through the rich oiliness of the cooking juices used to make the rest of the sauce.
Serves 2 for a light lunch.
Ingredients:
For the squid:
1 large squid, cleaned and gutted then cut into large triangular pieces
½ a lemon, juice only
Olive oil
For the pork:
1 pork jowl, approx. 600/700g
1 carrot, halved vertically
1 leek, halved vertically
1 onion, sliced thickly
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 star anise
1 bay leaf
A few sprigs of thyme
1 cinnamon stick
1 glass of white wine
1 tbsp fennel seeds
For the sausage mixture:
25g butter
1 shallot, very finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped
1 lemon, zest only
1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
1 tsp dried chilli flakes (or to taste)
½ tsp oregano
An approx. A4-sized sheet of caul fat
For the purple sprouting broccoli:
10 florets of purple sprouting broccoli, trimmed
Olive oil
For the squid ink dressing:
4 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 lemon, juice only
1 bay leaf
½ a small sachet of squid ink
Pre-heat the oven to 160⁰C.
First roast the pork jowl. Use the sliced leek, onion, carrot and garlic as a trivet in the bottom of a roasting dish. Top with the star anise, cinnamon, fennel seeds, thyme, seasoning, white wine and about 150ml of water. Score ½ cm marks into the pork skin and rub in a generous amount of salt. Place the meat on top of the trivet and cover with foil. Bake for 3 hours, or until the meat is really tender. Raise the temperature of the oven to 220⁰C and continue to roast until the crackling is crunchy. Strip the soft meat from the crackling, it should fall away with little pressure, and shred well.
Heat a saucepan up to a medium temperature and add the butter for the sausage mixture and a little olive oil. Fry the shallots, garlic, paprika, oregano, chilli flakes and lemon zest until very tender. Add the shredded pork meat and a good amount of seasoning and combine well. Reduce the heat slightly, cover the saucepan and allow to cook for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste for seasoning then mash the ingredients together well. Spread the filling mixture out onto a plate to cool down quickly.
To construct the sausages, lay the sheet of caul fat onto a flat surface. Make a long sausage out of the filling mixture and lay on top. Very carefully wrap with the caul fat, overlapping a little and making sure that the filling is held in tightly. Twist and cut into a few separate sausages, then put in the fridge for about 15 minutes.
Make the dressing by putting the vinegar, lemon juice, bay leaf and seasoning into a small saucepan. Reduce over a medium heat until only about 2 tablespoons of liquid remains. Remove the bay leaf and squeeze in the squid ink. Mix well and taste; it should be quite sharp. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Lightly score one side of the squid pieces in a crisscross and allow to come to room temperature on a plate.
Fill a saucepan with well-salted water and bring to the boil. Also heat a non-stick pan to a medium temperature.
When the pan is hot, fry the sausages in a little oil for a couple of minutes on each side until crisp on the outside. Be careful when turning them to reduce the risk of the caul fat breaking apart.
Boil the broccoli for a couple of minutes until cooked but still retaining a bit of bite. Drain from the pan, season well and toss in the olive oil.
While the other elements are cooking, heat up a heavy pan or griddle to a high temperature. When smoking, coat the squid pieces in olive oil and seasoning then sear quickly for about a minute on each side. Squeeze over the lemon juice right at the end.
To serve, put some of the broccoli and sliced sausage pieces onto a plate and top with some of the squid. Spoon some of the cooking juices from the sausage around the stacks and dot over some of the dressing.
I was really happy with my first attempt at creating something out of the pig’s head in the last post. Before starting the project I was fairy anxious as to how it would turn out and taste, as apart from the Hannibal Lecters among us who really likes the thought of eating the face and ears of something? But it just goes to show that you should always give these squeamish things a try, and in this case it was totally delicious. I love the increased popularity of nose to tail cooking, both for the great food it throws up and the minimised wastage from using more of the animal. Farmers do an amazing job to bring us such fantastic well reared produce, so it takes the piss a bit to throw loads of it straight in the bin. It’s mostly just the psychological barrier that needs to be broken down, especially in this country. We have a lot to learn from other countries and cultures, where all of the unglamorous stuff is often a delicacy.
As I only used the cheeks and the ears in the last recipe, I still had tons of meat left that I was determined to use. This mostly comprised of the large slabs of jowl, which have a great fat content and almost resemble a piece of pork belly. Traditionally these would be used to make brawn or rillettes, but I had other ideas. For a while now I had been wanting to make doughnuts, but instead of your traditional cream or jam filled varieties I thought about giving them a little twist. Not having a mega sweet tooth, I often ate them and craved something savoury and salty to cut through all of the sugar. So why not combine the two? I guess the inspiration was probably born from eating things like Asian steamed pork buns, apart from this would be much dirtier and more deep fried.
With the doughnut idea, I originally intended the meat to be shredded confit duck, combined with something like cherry. But recently I had an apple filling, and the pork idea lit up. Although normally you would pipe the jam into the cooked buns, the coarseness of the cooked pork mixture meant that I stuffed the dough after the first proving process. I was sceptical about this at first and thought that this might upset the raising process, but once cooked the filling stayed inside and the dough was light and fluffy. I was really pleased with the taste too, that had just the right balance of sweetness, richness and saltiness. It has also opened up my eyes to all of the other filling possibilities out there.
They went down a treat with everyone who I gave them too. After a few nervous looks at the prospect of a pig head doughnut they were wolfed down.
Makes about 8 large doughnuts.
Ingredients:
For the dough:
550g strong white flour, plus more for dusting
14g instant yeast
60g caster sugar
40g salted butter, softened
2 eggs
150ml milk
125ml water
Salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying, about 2ltrs.
For the filling:
1 x pork jowl, about 600/700g
1 carrot, halved vertically
1 leek, halved vertically
1 onion, sliced thickly
3 cloves of garlic
1 star anise
1 bay leaf
A few sprigs of thyme
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 glass of white wine
1 braeburn apple, peeled and cut into large chunks
30g butter
1 tbsp caster sugar, or to taste
Salt and pepper
For the sugar coating:
4 tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp fennel seeds
A good pinch of salt
Pre-heat the oven to 160⁰C.
First roast the pork jowl. Use the sliced leek, onion, carrot and garlic as a trivet in the bottom of a roasting dish. Top with the star anise, cinnamon, fennel seeds, thyme, seasoning, white wine and about 150ml of water. Score ½ cm marks into the pork skin and rub in a generous amount of salt. Place the meat on top of the trivet and cover with foil. Bake for 3 hours, or until the meat is really tender, adding the apples underneath the meat for the last hour. Raise the temperature of the oven to 220⁰C and continue to roast until the crackling is crunchy. Strip the soft meat from the crackling, it should fall away with little pressure, and shred well. Reserve the roasted apple chunks. Cut the crackling into strips and sprinkle with salt.
To make the doughnut dough, get a large bowl and add the flour, sugar, a good pinch of salt and butter. Form a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and add the eggs and water. Warm the milk to a lukewarm temperature and stir in the yeast. Add this mixture to the other wet ingredients and combine them into the dry ingredients using a spoon until it comes together. Tip the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead really well for about 7-8 minutes, or until smooth and slightly elasticky. Put the dough into a clean bowl and cover with a layer of clingfilm. Leave in a warm area for about an hour to prove.
While the dough is proving make the filling. Chop up the roasted apple chunks and add to the shredded pork meat. Heat up the butter in a saucepan on a medium temperature. Add the meat and the apple along with the sugar and some seasoning. Stir together, cover the saucepan and cook gently for about ten minutes. Mash the filling roughly so that everything is combined yet still a little chunky, then taste and adjust the seasoning if needed. Tip out onto a plate and allow to cool.
When the dough has had its first prove, tip out and divide into 8 pieces, depending on how many and what size you require. Knead each piece a couple of times to get rid of some of the air and then flatten a little to create a thick disk. Spoon a tablespoon of the cold filling mixture into the middle and then carefully seal around it, making sure there are no gaps. Roll the doughnuts to create a round bun shape and then transfer to a well-floured surface, seal side down. Cover loosely with a layer of cling film and allow to prove for another hour.
To make the sugar coating, put the sugar, cinnamon, fennel seeds and salt into a pestle and mortar and crush together really well.
When the doughnuts have nearly finished their proving time, start heating the frying oil in a large, wide saucepan to 160⁰C.
To cook the doughnuts, carefully lower them into the hot oil using a large greased spoon. Cook in small batches depending on the size of your saucepan, but do not overcrowd. Fry slowly for about 4-5 minutes on each side to ensure that the middles are cooked through. Scatter a good amount of the sugar coating onto a plate or board. As soon as each doughnut is cooked, transfer straight over and roll well so that every bit of the surface is covered. Eat whilst still warm, with a bit of the crackling on the side.
“There a pig’s head in our kitchen?!” she said down the phone, in a way that even without seeing her came with raised eyebrows and scepticism. “Are you sure that you don’t just want to go to the pub instead?” and “please can it not be staring out of the fridge when I get home” (this was not a question) followed. I couldn’t help but grin wryly. There was a huge temptation to divulge that I was in the process of ridding her supper of impressive facial hair and ear wax. There was a vague temptation to decorate my clothing with the ears, tongue and teeth for when she walked through the door. This was quickly discarded, but I revelled in the challenge of making her a lunch that she had already squeamishly written off. This was going to be fun.
I love a good project, and this one had been long in the making. For months I looked at trendy menus that contained pig’s head this way and that, and it just always remained one of those things that I would get around to doing at some point. I had never tackled anything of the sort; apart from eating the cheeks and spying ears on the odd bar menu I had no idea what else was there. This seemed the best way to find out, and before I knew it I was sitting on the bus home next to a large bag, hoping dearly that a child didn’t peek inside.
It was surprisingly easy to tackle once home, and before long most of the meat was in manageable portions. Although I could have got the butcher to do most of this, and he probably would have made the whole process look so much neater, I felt rewarded in learning a small skill.
I only needed the ears and the small, dark nuggets of cheek meat (plus a couple of extra) for this recipe, so against my dear lady’s wishes a few largish bits of pig ended up finding their way into the fridge. But they were certainly not wasted, and in the next couple of blog posts I’ll be writing about the recipes that followed. For such a cheap, unglamorous cut of meat it really went far. I’ll certainly be getting another before too long, to roast whole until crisp or make stunning rillettes out of if nothing else.
In terms of flavours used in this recipe, I’ve stayed fairly safe and traditional. Pork loves sweetness, and this comes through in the beetroot and the leeks. For me this needs to be balanced though, and I often avoid pork dishes when eating out as it tends to come with a sugar overload. The addition of earthy black pudding and savoury sauce achieve this equilibrium, and the tarragon gives an additional fresh tanginess that rounds everything off.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
For the braised cheeks:
4 pork cheeks, sinew removed
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 leek, roughly chopped
1 onion, roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, crushed
10 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
2 star anise
30g butter
500ml good quality dry cider
1.5ltrs good chicken stock
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
For the crispy ears:
1 pig’s ear, any hair and wax removed
Oil for frying, approx. 1ltr
Salt
For the burnt leeks:
6 baby leeks
Olive oil
½ lemon, juice only
Salt and pepper
For the black pudding:
2 slices of black pudding, cut into 1cm cubes
Olive oil
For the beetroot puree:
2 beetroots
8 sprigs of thyme
2 garlic cloves
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
20g butter
Splash of hot water
For the tarragon mayonnaise:
250ml rapeseed oil
1 large bunch of tarragon, leaves picked
1 egg yolk
½ a garlic clove, finely chopped
Splash of white wine vinegar
½ lemon, juice only
Salt and pepper
For the sauce:
Approx. 200g of trimmings from the pig’s head, excess fat removed
1 shallot, finely chopped
¼ leek, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
5 sprigs of thyme
1 star anise
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp sugar
2 bay leaves
150ml good dry sherry
500ml of the braising stock
20g butter
Salt and pepper
First braise the cheeks and ear. Heat a large stockpot with a little oil to a high temperature. Season the cheeks and brown very well on all sides, then remove to a plate. Add the onion, leek, carrot, garlic, herbs, spices and seasoning to the pan and sauté for a couple of minutes. Pour in the cider and bring to the boil, then add the cheeks and ear and cover with the stock. Return to the boil and then reduce to a low simmer, cover and cook for 3 hours. Once the meat is tender and cooked, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Carefully remove the cheeks and ear from the liquid to a plate and set aside or refrigerate until needed. Strain the stock, discard the vegetables and reserve the liquid to make the sauce.
Preheat the oven to 200⁰C (fan).
Make the beetroot puree by putting the beetroot, garlic, half the thyme, seasoning and a little olive oil into a small oven dish. Tightly cover with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 1 – 1 ½ hours, or until very tender. When cooked, remove from the oven and carefully peel the beets and garlic. Transfer to a small food processor along with the butter, the rest of the fresh thyme leaves, seasoning and a small splash of water. Blitz very well until you get a fine puree texture. Taste and adjust the seasoning, then pass through a sieve. Set aside for reheating later.
While the beetroot is cooking make the tarragon mayonnaise. Pour the rapeseed oil into a food processor with the tarragon leaves and blitz well until the oil is a vibrant green colour. Pour into a jug and clean the processor bowl. Put the egg yolk, salt, garlic and vinegar into the clean mixer and blend well. With the blade still running pour in the tarragon oil very slowly, until the mixture thickens and emulsifies. When all the oil has been mixed add the lemon juice and taste for seasoning. Let the mayonnaise down with a little water if too thick. Transfer to a sauce bottle and refrigerate until needed.
For the sauce, heat a large skillet or saucepan to high and add a little oil. Brown the trimmings well on all sides before adding the leek, shallot, garlic, fennel seeds and herbs and frying until coloured. Carefully add the sherry and burn off the alcohol and then top up with the stock. Reduce right down until left with a thick sauce, about 15-20 minutes. Strain into a small saucepan.
Heat the frying oil for the ears in a saucepan to 180⁰C. Dry the ear with kitchen roll and slice into thin strips. When the oil is hot carefully lower in the strips and cook for a minute or two until crispy and golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain. Sprinkle with salt and set aside.
Fill a saucepan with salted water and bring to the boil. When hot blanch the baby leeks for a minute, then transfer to a large bowl of cold water. When cool, remove and pat dry. Put aside for grilling later.
Heat the oven to 180⁰C.
When the oven is hot, arrange the black pudding onto a baking tray and drizzle over a little olive oil. Bake in the oven for 4-5 minutes.
While the black pudding is cooking finish off the other elements of the dish:
Heat a frying pan to a medium-high temperature and add a little olive oil. When hot add the braised cheeks and cook for 2 minutes on each side until browned. Halfway through cooking add the butter and a good tablespoon of the reduced sauce and baste well.
Heat a heavy griddle pan to a high temperature. Toss the blanched leeks in a little olive oil. When the griddle is hot sear the leeks for a couple of minutes until the outsides start to blacken. Remove to a plate, season well and squeeze over the lemon juice.
Reheat the sauce and stir in the butter thoroughly just before serving.
Gently reheat the beetroot puree.
To plate up, arrange two pig cheeks onto each plate and three baby leeks around and on top. Spoon a quenelle of the beetroot puree to one side and squeeze some of the mayonnaise around the plate. Scatter on some of the black pudding and crispy ear. Finally spoon over a little of the thick sauce.
