Pig Headed

Dear Blog-

I never thought I'd be writing this letter.  It all started out so innocently.  My local CSA contacted me with the option of purchasing a share of pork from a local pig rancher.  Once signed up, my boyfriend reminded me that we needed pigs ears to complete the next dinner menu in the recipe book I've been wanting to work through, David Tanis' Platter of Figs, which said boyfriend purchased for me for my  last birthday.  The pig lady informed me that she only had pigs ears attached to whole pig's heads......so in the spirit of culinary adventure....I decided to buy the whole damn head from her - 16lbs of pig face sat looking out at me  while it defrosted in the fridge.

What was I going to do with it?  I turned to the internets for ideas.  I landed on this wonderful video from local chef and lover of all things offal, Chris Costentino, where he debones the pig face to make porchetta di testa.  I contacted my little brother, the professional chef, who had many ideas.  Also out there is a wonderful blog by *chichi* summarizing her challenges removing the jaw from her pigs head and cooking down into coppa di testa, also known as head cheese.   I have to admit, the concept of head cheese is still a little 'challenging' for me.   So I decided on the following strategy:

- Debone the skull as directed in the Chris Costentino video

- Remove ears and snout for the fancy french salad recipe which started this whole mess.

- Remove one jowl for braising, to make banh min

- Roll the remaining face into a roulade, comparable to the Porchetta di Testa (minus snout)

- Roast and cook down remaining skull into broth for ramen 

First, I had to obtain a good boning knife.  None of my poorly sharpened knives were going to cut it.  As much as Sur La Table brings out a strange anger in me, I decided to go to the Ferry Building for 2 reasons.  1.)  Stop by Boccalone to taste their Porchetta di Testa sandwich so I had an idea of what I was trying to make  2.) See what an overpriced boning knife costs at Sur La Table and get the advice of the sales person with the plan to shop elsewhere.  Sur la Table always seems to be ridculously over priced to me.   Happily, not only did we get to taste the Porchetta di Testa, in a sandwich with pickles, carrots, and mint, similar to a banh min, we found an affordable and recommended boning knife for only $20, by Victorinox.  For those new to boning knives, you are looking for something sharp and slightly flexible to follow the curvature of the bone while you cut away the meat.  The Victorinox handled itself fine during this process, but seemed to dull by the very end.  Supposedly the higher end versions ~$85-$90 hold their edge better so its a question of how much you want to invest and/or sharpen your knives.    Finally, we picked up my propane blow torch and a hacksaw, just in case we needed to saw through any bone (I sterilized a clean blade with the propane torch)

First thing we cleared a large working space near the sink and laid out my tools.  

- Boning knife plus generic paring knife

- Cutting board (mine was too small ~11in x 17in, you really want something twice as big

- Safety Razors (for shaving the pig)

- Blow torch (for the hairs you can't reach with a razor)

- Hacksaw, sterilized (for sawing bones)

- Whiskey cocktail, administered as needed

- Theme appropriate music 

I watched several videos of the process on YouTube  several of which I'm listing below.  Chris Costentino's seems to be the master video as it most clearly explains what you are trying to do.  I won't try to retell what his video explains, but here are some points I'd like to add in case you are a novice like I am.

1.)  Shaving the pig may take awhile.  There was quite alot of whiskers left on mine and the ears were really gross.  I ended up removing the ears in order to really clean them.   Something I would recommend if possible as it seemed impossible to get completely clean when they were fully attached.

2.)  Burning the hair smells really gross.  Limit this as much as possible.  Not that much different then burning human hair, but you are already digging your hand deep into a dead animal.

3.)  The tongue was a little tricky for me.  I initially cut it out way to shallow.  In hindsight, I'd recognize the small kind of wishbone shaped bones in the back which make up the soft palate.  Use these as your guide for fishing the tongue out the back.

4.) Nosebleeds -  The pig will almost certainly bleed out the nose the first time you flip in over on its snout.....and the second time...and third..... .keep plenty of towels to clean up.  This isn't the best smelling part of the butchering process.

5.) There is a f*(k-ton of meat in the cheeks!  Even after watching the video I was suprised at the amount of meat I was peeling of the jaws.  It looks about like bacon with some more 'meaty' parts near the jaw.

6.)  The transition from upper jaw to cheekbone can be a little tricky.  It was pretty striaight -forward following both the upper and lower jaw bone, but I got a little confused once I needed to move up along the cheekbone.  I was also very conservative in cutting around the eyes.  Not sure what happens if you actually pierce an eyeball, but I didn't want to take any chances.  I cut a generous perimeter around the eyeball then, followed that along the cheekbone until I got my bearings.  Once I got a feel for the location of the cheekbones, it seemed to loosen up and make more sense.   Take your time and remember to cut away from yourself.

For the most part, I was able to follow the video compeletely and successfully removed the pig 'mask' from the skull.   Boyfriend and I agreed that we weren't ready to eat the brains yet, but we decided to try to open the skull in order to fish them out before trying to cook the skull down for ramen broth.  At this point, I was a little overstimulated and stopped for a cocktail break.  Cue the Primal Scream 'Exterminator' music and I look up to find the boyfriend going to town on the skull with my hacksaw.  He managed to saw the skull into 2 halves and removed the snout and lower jaw.  Brains were a disturbing pink slime which apologies to the purists, I am in no hurry to put on my plate or in my frying pan.   What suprised both of us was just how thick a pig skull is and what gnarly teeth they possess.   Hopefully I am never on the wrong side of an argument with a live pig.  I'm pretty sure he'd win.

So...  The face was divided up per plan and returned to the freezer.   The four pieces of skull bone were roasted in the over,  approximately 45 minutes at 250, then 15 min at 450 to get a dark color to the bones.   After roasting, I boiled the bones down for approx 20hrs with about a 1/4 cup of kosher salt.   Having cancelled dinner plans, this broth was strained and also placed in the freezer, to be used for a noodle night in the very near future.

Recipes to follow as I start cooking up everything.  I week ago, I had no plans of getting into this mess.  Now I have 36lbs of pork in my freezer.

- the Barb0bot, aka pigface